Tea Time Tuesday

It’s Tea Time Tuesday once again my Mammoth Manuscript Munchers. I hope your day went well. Today’s Gem is the color of Copa d’Oro, Cup of Gold, a beautiful Mexican flower. This Gem is white with a beautiful golden center. It is also the color of cocaine, which so many seem to think will make them gold and all their troubles go away. Hold it in your gloved claw and it is heavy, a cumbersome burden to bare. Do not touch it, it is Death to all who seek it out.

Our Gem Maker is Jeanine Kitchel who has lived in Mexico, built a house and business there at one time. She brings us “Wheels Up: A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival”. Her characters are realistic. They are not over the top, like some cartoonish Hollywood version of Cartel overlords. These people are smart, ruthless and deadly, just like the product they sell. But for the past few decades it has not only been drugs they sell. Drugs can be gotten on the relative cheap, but can only be sold once. They have thought up a new investment, a new game, a game that hurts, a game to the death: Human Trafficking. This game effects us all.

Kitchel’s main character, Layla, has become the head of her family’s cartel, the Culiacan Cartel. The former head, her uncle, El Patron, is in prison for a very long time. His partner, Don Zoyo, has been running things until he named Layla as his successor. Normally a woman would not be named, but Reynoldo, Layla’s brother had been killed while running the cartel and Layla was the only choice. She was a good one. She’d kept the books prior to her promotion. She had a mind like a computer, she was smart, savvy and quick to learn. Her time has come.

One night in Guatemala at Don Guillermo’s Villa she is there with her body guard, Carlos and her Canadian partner, Clay. They are to make the final arrangements for a huge cocaine shipment. Layla makes a terrifying discovery, one she cannot ignore. Human trafficking is going on in a form she cannot ignore. She lets her temper get the better of her and she shows her hand at supper in Guillermo’s Villa. A dangerous move and this is when everything gets rolling. Put on your seat belt, keep your hands inside the ride at all times, this is about to get dangerous.

From this point on the action does not stop. A plane crash, assassination attempts, every cartel everywhere is out to get Layla and her men. I loved this book. Never a dull moment. I never like drug dealers in books. I think Layla is growing on me and it scares me a bit. I do hope Jeanine writes a sequel because there are questions to be answered, bad guys still breathing and relationships still up in the air. There is still a chance for this Cartel Queen to be rehabilitated.

If you are looking for a book to keep you on the edge of your seat, this is it. It is available now on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Up-Novel-Cartels-Survival/dp/0692064699/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= and is available in both Kindle and paperback. Get it today.

Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble book dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten

I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.