A Five Year Plan

Is there a little larceny in your soul? Then this is for you: a caper novel with an it-could-happen plot and the explosive pace of an action adventure. Dave Delano didn't spend five years in prison idling away hard time. "I believe in the redistribution of wealth," he told one guard. But redistribution for Dave was strictly personal. His five-year plan aimed to put a million-five into his own pockets. In the former Soviet Union there are a million scams. Most lucrative is money-laundering. Refitting U.S. yachts to hide dirty dollars and shipping these across the Atlantic on transport ferries destined for Black Sea ports, the mob magically "disappears" its cash into Russian banks. Dave Delano thinks some of that money should be his. It's a simple matter of highjacking on the high seas. For the Colombian cartel, Europe is a magnet. But landing their coke is another matter. When FBI agent Kate Fury gets a hot tip they are shipping it in a hollowed-out yacht hull via transport ferry, she knows she's onto the biggest collar of her career. Boarding that ferry, she's set to pounce. But she hasn't counted on Dave Delano, who has his own personal agenda. The result is combustion: a fast and very funny romantic caper that will keep you guessing to the end.

From Kirkus Reviews

Versatile Kerr, last spotted scaling the Himalaya in search of hominids and a CIA zealot (Esau, 1997), heads into Elmore Leonard territory in this amusingly overplotted thriller. When he's finished serving his five years for a manslaughter he didn't commit, Dave Delano, with his earrings and Lucifer beard, looks a lot like a pirate, so it makes sense that he'd think of piracy as his way of getting back on the map. Dave knows that American mobsters have started to launder their drug money by hiding it in yachts being ferried across the Atlantic to the new, mob-infested Russia, and he sees no reason why some of that money shouldn't be his. Naked Tony Nudelli, the capo for whom Dave took the rap, agrees to the extent of staking Dave to a boat of his ownso that he'll have some cover for booking passage on the yacht-carrying Grand Dukeand a minder, Tony's business manager Al Carnaro, ``Colonel Tom Parker with guns and jokes.'' Dave's not to know, of course, that Tony and Al have ideas of their own, or that the comely lady Dave's about to fall for, Kate Furey, has a cover story as bogus as his own. As Dave plies his romance with Kate, an FBI agent on the transatlantic trail of a cocaine shipment her idiot boss, Kent Bowen, is convinced is aboard the Grand Duke, it's clear that something special is in store for the happy couple. But they're so evenly matched as liars and banterers, so equally spirited and attractive, and so evenly handicapped by their sidekicks, murderous Al and troglodyte Kent, that you keep waiting, as Kerr unveils twist after twist (porn filmmaker shipmates, a nasty hurricane, an unexpected change in course), to see which of them will finally get the upper hand. It all makes for a heartlessly accurate, if synthetic, copy of Leonard at his most disarmingand leaves you wondering just how many more voices Kerr has up his sleeve. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Amazon.com Review

Phillip Kerr, a bestselling author in his native U.K., has been called "Michael Crichton's smarter brother" due to his wide-ranging intelligence and technical knowledge. Dave Delano, the protagonist of this lively thriller, is an American who's educated himself in prison--serving a sentence for a manslaughter he didn't commit. Newly fluent in Russian, he's intrigued by the idea of redistributing wealth, particularly the Mafia's. His plan is to hijack a transatlantic transport ferry/yacht being used to smuggle drug money and to divert the dollars into his very own bank in the former Soviet Union. It all seems flawless until he meets another Grand Duke passenger who's looking to score: Kate Fury, a gorgeous FBI agent who's been tracking cocaine from Colombia to Miami to the European playgrounds of the rich and expecting the biggest collar of her career. What happens when they cross paths is the stuff of a funny, violent, and oddly romantic caper. The plot twists fast enough to satisfy even die-hard Elmore Leonard fans and turns on double dealing, false identities, and misunderstood motives, without letting the humor get in the way of the action. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Narrator Boyd Gaines seems to have an enormous amount of fun with the characters in Kerr's latest thriller, who include mobsters, Russians, porn stars, and assorted ocean-going scoundrels. During his five years in prison, Dave Delano developed a plan: get aboard a sea transport and hijack a large yacht that is smuggling money for the Russian mob. Such a plan takes financing, so Delano turns to the American mob for backing, which they give along with Al, a ruthless button man who is their loan security. Meanwhile, FBI agent Kate Fury and her Kansas-bred, ocean-loathing, oversexed male supervisor are working the same transport looking for illegal drug shipments. And then there is the all-female crew of a yacht owned by a porno film company that is also being transported. Patrons who like Donald Westlake's Dormunder series will enjoy this. Highly recommended.?Ray Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L., IACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From the Publisher

7 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Dave Brewster has just finished serving five years of a ten-year robbery sentence. He either has to go straight, or pull off a job that will put him on easy street for the rest of his life -- he chooses the job of a lifetime, one that's been five years in the making.Every year luxury yachts are shipped from Florida to Europe by way of a huge transporter. Brewster and his hand-picked crew of crime specialists plan a spectacular heist of one of the yachts, along with an estimated $250 million worth of jewels, art and cash being shipped on the other 16 vessels.But Brewster is not the only one attempting to take advantage of this floating catch of a lifetime. As agendas conflict, the result is an enormously exciting cat-and-mouse chase and a surprise dénouement on the high seas. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Author of Esau ("fires its Crichtonite bullets with deadly accuracy and keeps the pages turning"--Newsday ) and known for his cerebral techno-thrillers and noir novels, Philip Kerr here takes a 180-degree turn to prove he is today's best switch-hitter of terrific commercial fiction. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

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