Title: The Florida Caper
Author: David Celley
Publisher: URLink Print & Media
ISBN: 978-1643675411
Pages: 368
Genre: Fiction / Thriller / Crime
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop

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It begins like a scene from Mission Impossible. A black-clad cat burglar goes over the wall and into a mansion. The thief employs equipment he has brought with him and repels via a Tom Cruise technique to swipe an incredibly expensive necklace from its alarm-enabled resting place. Before you know it, the burglar and the bodacious bobble are gone and the hunt to reclaim the “Eye of the Sun” has begun.

Author David Celley’s contemporary crime tale, The Florida Caper, gets off to a fast start and doesn’t slow down. It’s about the hunt for a fabulous necklace which actually contains a blue stone that was initially cut from the world-famous Hope Diamond. The supposed curse attached to the gem rears its ugly head as good guys and bad struggle to find and possess the jeweled masterpiece.

After it’s stolen, the incredibly wealthy owner of the necklace wants it back at virtually any price. It was a gift to his now deceased wife and holds as much sentimental value to him as it does monetarily. He persuades his nephew, Greg, a professor of history, to take a leave of absence from his university to help find the purloined beauty. Greg, a total novice at such a task, employs a private investigative agency to help him. The agency consists of two ex-sheriff’s department officers. Tina is a two-hundred pound plus woman who’s smart as a whip, tough as a tigress, and a fiend for Notre Dame football. Her partner is Mike, an ex-marine skilled at hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, drinking, and skirt-chasing. Not necessarily in that order. Together with Greg, they begin a search for the necklace which will take them into the heart of the Cuban community in South Florida where they’ll mingle with shady lawyers, questionable security experts, small-time jewelers and big-time drug dealers, plus an assortment of thugs, henchmen, and hitmen. Before the story’s conclusion, fist-fights, shoot-outs, and even commando-like raids have taken place in Bimini and beyond.

Celley is a skilled storyteller who enhances his main plot with interesting subplots that branch off like tributaries in a stream. These excursions into dishonest land deals with disreputable real estate executives and corrupt politicians wind up playing relevant roles in the chase for the amazing choker. The author also infuses his tale with colorful supporting characters whose motives and machinations mingle menacingly as more and more individuals entertain thoughts of possessing the diamond-encrusted prize. Readers who like a fast-paced, suspense-filled story will likely find that The Florida Caper more than fills the bill.