Dead Man's Land by Jack Patterson (digital e reader .txt) 📕

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What Others Are Saying

About Jack Patterson

“Jack’s storytelling feels as natural as James Patterson’s, and the short-chapter setup is the literary answer to Lay’s potato chips: you just want one more and before you know it, you’ve gone through the whole thing.

- David Bashore, The Times-News, Twin Falls, ID

“Jack Patterson does a fantastic job at keeping you engaged and interested. I look forward to more from this talented author.”

- Aaron Patterson, bestselling author of SWEET DREAMS

“Patterson has a mean streak about a mile wide and puts his two main characters through quite a horrible ride, which makes for good reading.”

- Richard D., reader

“Like a John Grisham novel, from the very start I was pulled right into the story and couldn’t put the book down. It was as if I personally knew and cared about what happened to each of the main characters. Every chapter ended with so much excitement and suspense I had to continue to read until I learned how it ended, even though it kept me up until 3:00 A.M.

- Ray F., reader

DEAD SHOT

“Small town life in southern Idaho might seem quaint and idyllic to some. But when local newspaper reporter Cal Murphy begins to uncover a series of strange deaths that are linked to a sticky spider web of deception, the lid on the peaceful town is blown wide open. Told with all the energy and bravado of an old pro, first-timer Jack Patterson hits one out of the park his first time at bat with Dead Shot. It’s that good.”

- Vincent Zandri, bestselling author of THE REMAINS

“You can tell Jack knows what it’s like to live in the newspaper world, but with Dead Shot, he’s proven that he also can write one heck of a murder mystery. With a clever plot and characters you badly want to succeed, he is on his way to becoming a new era James Patterson.”

- Josh Katzowitz,

NFL writer for CBSSports.com

& author of Sid Gillman: Father of the Passing Game

DEAD LINE

“This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I didn’t really want to put it down. Jack Patterson has hooked me. I’ll be back for more.”

- Bob Behler

3-time Idaho broadcaster of the year

and play-by-play voice for Boise State football

DEAD IN THE WATER

“In Dead in the Water, Jack Patterson accurately captures the action-packed saga of a what could be a real-life college football scandal. The sordid details will leave readers flipping through the pages as fast as a hurry-up offense.”

- Mark Schlabach,

ESPN college sports columnist and

co-author of Called to Coach

Heisman: The Man Behind the Trophy

Other titles by Jack Patterson

Cal Murphy Thriller series

Dead Shot

Dead Line

Better off Dead

Dead in the Water

Dead Man's Curve

Dead and Gone

Dead Wrong

Dead Man's Land

James Flynn Thriller series

The Warren Omissions

Imminent Threat

For Pinckney Thompson, the guy who made life

on the baseball diamond fun every day

“For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.”

- A. Bartlett Giamatti

CHAPTER 1

VICENTE PRADO GLANCED out of the window at the man adrift in the water. He wanted to help him. Was he dead? The man’s unknown status tempted Prado to bolt back outside and find out for himself, but his feet felt as if anchors were wrapped around them. Yes, he wanted to go down to the dock and fish his body out of the water. But he couldn’t. Not now anyway. Though he’d passed the point of no return a mere five minutes before, it might as well have been a hundred years ago.

The low gurgling hum of the engine grew louder with each passing second. For Prado, it was the sound of freedom rumbling toward him—and he couldn’t spend another minute on the island, even if he wanted to.

Twelve hours ago, he couldn’t imagine anything that would tempt him to stay …

***

WITH THE TOE OF HIS SHOE, Vicente Prado chipped off peach flecks of paint on the Estadio Cristóbal Labra seats. Faded pastels were the color of the revolution, at least it appeared that way to him. Expansive swaths of concrete stands surrounded the field, serving their purpose for the Isla de la Juventud Grapefruit Cutters fans, though not comfortably. A bead of sweat trickled off his nose and splashed onto the ground. He looked up at the cliffs rising behind the stadium to the north. They blocked his view to the sea, the only thing between him and a better future. He sighed and shook his head, unsure if he had what it took to survive beyond Cuba’s constricting confines. There was a world out there—a world with baseball teams that would be willing to pay him more than fifteen dollars a week to play. They’d pay him more than he ever imagined, though money didn’t drive his desire to escape to safety and play in a park just over 120 miles away in the southern tip of Florida.

Freedom fueled his fire.

“El Roque!” one of the coaches called to Prado. “The Rock” was a nickname he earned once while working in the island’s rock quarry. At age 13, a foreman handed him a hammer and told him to split the rock. In one swing, Prado sliced the rock apart. Immediately, he was sent to play baseball on a developmental team in Nueva Gerona, home to the island’s Cuban National series baseball team. As he walked toward the plate, he wondered how different his life would’ve been if he hadn’t halved the rock in a single swing.

I’d still be swinging a chisel right now.

Instead, he was swinging 36 inches of lumber crafted into a smooth bat, extracted from the dense forest on the southern part of the island, once named