The Wind Is Rising - Part 1 — Daniel Quentin Steele

BLURB:Bill Maitland has woman troubles. The hard nosed Assistant State Attorney who in reality is the top prosecutor in Jacksonville in Northeast Florida is still in love with his sexy ex-wife Debbie, the mother of his two children and the woman that dumped him for a younger, hotter fellow University of North Florida professor. He still gets twinges thinking about the beautiful French cruise director Aline who is married to a friend in Paris. She dumped him to go back to her husband. But, still… And he’s currently having sex that’s the envy of every male in the courthouse with the unbelievably stacked Myra, secretary to his boss. But Myra has secrets. He has already learned one terrible, earth shattering secret. He could get by that, but he’s finding out she’s harboring other secrets. And he’s not so sure that he can live with those.And that’s only on the woman front. On the professional front, he faces the challenge of prosecuting William Sutton, a man who murdered his wife and unborn son to win a $5 million prize. The challenge is Maitland has no witnesses, no forensic evidence, nobody who saw Sutton together with the victim the day his wife was murdered, no way to prove Sutton was even in Jacksonville the night of the murder. And now the ONLY witness on his side has been charged with murder a half a state away, by a rogue sheriff who may be most dangerous man Maitland has ever encountered. Because Sheriff David Bludwurth has money, power, the law and a force of killers wearing badges to carry out his wishes. And he is apparently working to ensure that Sutton walks free.And if Maitland gets by that…there’s the little matter of a looming trial of a Mexican druglord whose masters have massacred American prosecutors and their families to prevent the trial from taking place. The complication is that the most dangerous criminal in the world, the Colombian crime lord The Old Man, has threatened to go to war with the Mexicans if they touch Maitland or his family. And that has aroused the interest of top American federal prosecutors. What is the hold that a small-time American prosecutor has on one of the most dangerous men in the world that would compel him to go to war to protect Maitland?So between impossible trials, rogue sheriffs, murderous warring international drug cartels, and the U.S. federal government, Maitland has enough to worry about. And then there are those women…Debbie Maitland-Bascomb has man troubles. She divorced Bill Maitland after what seemed like a lifetime in an empty marital bed. Only to find her flabby, balding loser of a lover/husband slimming down, getting hot and rediscovering sex with other women. The young stud she left Maitland for gave her a great few months, until she discovered her 17-year-old daughter in his bed. And Clint Abbott, the dashing and compassionate writer who started as a friend and became a lover,has gone off to get himself killed on a reporting assignment in Africa. This divorce thing is a lot harder than it looks.