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Lose morals, looser women, chaos, calamity, car chases, and maximum helpings of mayhem make up this slam-bang adventure of one veteran’s walk on the wild side. The soldier thought surviving the jungles of Vietnam was the most dangerous thing he had ever done—until he was recruited to take on bad men in the Bahamas.
Hans, better know as Cowboy, musters out of the army and starts hitchhiking home to Idaho. He’s picked up by a couple of hippies and winds up in a drug-infested commune. Stealing the car that took him there, he bolts for home only to find that the girl he left behind is pregnant with another man’s child, and that his mom and dad are about to lose the family farm because of debts they can’t pay. An old army buddy agrees to solve his parents’ financial problem if Cowboy will join him in providing security for a casino in the Bahamas. He agrees—and so begins a whirlwind of events that include beatings, jail breaks, shoot-outs, murder, and hijacking on the high seas.
The author is more storyteller than writer. Uncomplimentary tenses collide early and often. Clichés deluge dialogue and prose as well. Some of that can be marked up to the tale being told in the first person—Cowboy’s. His down-home delivery is appropriate for his character, but his reckless rationalizations sometimes blunt emotional impact. Still, if you’re a fan of Burt Reynolds movies in his prime, pace over poetry, and testosterone taken to a higher level, you just might find what you’re looking for in the pages of this potboiler.