On April 20, 2010 the infamous BP oil rig exploded spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Images of iridescent oil slicks dominated national and international news for weeks. However, such visible spills are not the only threat to our oceans. Marine scientists conducting research on an isolated Caribbean island inadvertently interfere with the ambitious plans of an unscrupulous waste management company in collusion with a corrupt island government. Deception, arrests, expulsion, and murder intertwine before natural forces trigger an environmental disaster with far-reaching consequences that could impact the marine ecosystem for decades to come. Could such a disaster actually happen? Perhaps it already has.
Reviewed by Charline Ratcliff for
RebeccasReads (11/11)
Recently I was asked to review “Currents of Deceit” by author Ronald Perkins.
After reading the provided synopsis I immediately agreed as “Currents of
Deceit” sounded like it would be a good book to say the least. When my copy
arrived I scanned the front and back before sitting down with it a day or so
later.
The premise of “Currents of Deceit” is as follows: Scott Simmons, a marine
biologist who hails from a small town in Indiana now works with the Florida
Fisheries Commissions and lives in Key West. Once a week Scott visits the local
fish market to examine the freshly caught ocean fish looking for harmful
parasites or anything else that might cause these fish to be unfit for human consumption.
The vendors are never happy to see Scott because they know if he finds any sort
of contamination he has the legal authority to stop their sales.
Linda Stevens, a marine biochemist and Scott’s girlfriend decides to run some
tests on Scott’s latest samples and look for POPs: Persistent Organic
Pollutants. Neither of them expects her to find anything; they both know she’s
just killing time while waiting for Scott to finish his own tests. However,
when her tests are done the results are…sobering. Linda has definitely found
high concentrations of PCBs in Scott’s deep water fish samples. PCBs are
polychlorinated biphenyls; things like pesticides that don’t degrade quickly
and don’t stay in one area. Needless to say both Scott and Linda are horrified by
her discovery and they quickly work on finding experts to verify their findings
and help them figure out what they need to do from this point.
I’m not going to give away any more of the book; suffice it to say that
“Currents of Deceit” is a great book and well worth reading. While “Currents of
Deceit” is a fictional story, in today’s world of seemingly endless oil and
other contaminant spills, this book hits home hard.
Kudos to Perkins for a fast-paced, well-written and interesting book. The plot
/ storyline is realistic; the characters are believable and the message
contained within “Currents of Deceit” is one that we all need to hear.
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