FIJIAN GOLD

About the Book

Private detective Jack Carston, one third of Brok & Carston, wakes up miserable and ill.  That's just the beginning of a very bad day, during which he is disappointed in love, threaten with death, and informed that Vatu Brok, his formidable black Fijian-American partner, is a murderer and a smuggler of ancient gold coins.  Over the next few days Brok and Carston communicate, react, and plan actions that begins in Michigan before they follow the trail to the beautiful island nation of Fiji, previously the Cannibal Islands, where most of the climax occurs.

Jack Carston and Vatu Brok, operate a profession employment service.  Rather, it is their secretary, Connie, who runs the employment service, Brok & Carston.  She has gradually steered her bosses into another aspect of profession search, detecting the lost that they may be found.

Brok's clouded past on Fiji propels them into a tangled plot involving local gangsters, drug smuggling, Brok's old enemies from Fiji, and Fijian racial politics.  A few gold coins do exist but the real problem involves Brok's ownership of the tiny uninhabited island on which he was born.  The drug dealers who have staked it out as a heroin transshipment warehouse do not want to be disturbed.  Brok was raised in an orphanage after his parents were murdered on the island.  One of the murderers is now a leader of the dacoits who want Brok eliminated.

Complications and violence develop even before they leave for Fiji.  Carston agrees to serve as live bait in their investigation of the connections between the old crimes and the new.  His experiences with the Fijian and Indian people of Fiji are as humorous, exotic, and erotic as they are dangerous.  Carston and Brok begin work on Vitu Levu and follow the trail to Brok's island.  They never lose their irreverent, amused view of their personal human condition as they finesse their way out of dangerous situations.  It is with reluctance and just cause that they resort to the extreme violence of their adversaries to finish their business on Brok's island satisfactorily; or so it seems to them.

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About the Author

Over forty years ago George Parrish was awarded an Honorable Mention in an Atlantic Monthly creative writing contest and never recovered. He spent twenty-five years as a writer miscast as an entrepreneur. Until 1990 most of his writing time was consumed by FORTRAN programming, reports, and proposals related to CPU, Inc., the computer sales and data processing business he started in 1968 and sold 25 year later to turn to reading and creative writing full time. George Parrish was born in Muskegon, Michigan, where he still lives. He is an honor graduate of the University of Michigan with degrees in electrical engineering and engineering mathematics. He held positions as technician, research engineer, college instructor, and business executive. He and his wife of 40 plus years have three children and seven grandchildren. Rite of Passage was first novel. He has also completed other novels, collections of poems, essays, and short stories.