In this thrilling sequel to Barracuda, we find many of the same characters reunited in Bikini Atoll. Barracuda II: The Return finds NYPD detective Mick O'Shaughnessy working in the South Bronx Detective Squad with his partner and close friend, Gus Lopez. "Micko" is unexpectedly called to the office of the Chief of Detectives, where he learns that he is being called back to Bikini Atoll to serve as a liaison between FBI agent Buddy Burger and the local government officials. Several years prior, Micko had been on vacation in the South Pacific atoll when he accidentally stumbled upon a money laundering operation. He turned the investigation over to Burger, but he had continued to help solve the intricate case, which involved Russian mafia and Japanese yakuza. This time around, Buddy must work with the DEA in investigating a large heroin-smuggling operation that he suspects is passing through the atoll en route to the United States. Micko's police experience and familiarity with Bikini Atoll will be very helpful, and citing the new interagency compliance directive, Micko arranges for Gus to join him, as well. Afghani opium is being transported through the Khyber Pass into the hands of a sinister man in Bangkok known as the Chinaman. He hides the drugs aboard a transport plane belonging to the civilian contractor company DKL, which stops at the US airbase on Guam for refueling. There, it is secreted aboard a small mail-delivery plane destined for Eneu Airport, located on one of the islands of the Bikini Atoll chain. But before landing, the drugs are dropped into the ocean at the designated coordinates and picked up by a speedboat. The heroin is purified on Shark Alley Island, then carried on DKL jets to Hawaii, LAX, and finally to Eugene, Oregon, the home of the DKL Corporation. The operation had been going smoothly until Buddy Burger had become suspicious and put out radar buoys. The smugglers were forced to change tactics. The new plan? Deliver one final drop of two hundred kilos before walking away from the operation, which entangles a large cast of unsavory characters that includes ex-cons and expatriates in China and Bikini Atoll, along with servicemen at the airbase in Guam and DKL employees. Also returned to Bikini Atoll are Dr. Collins and his protégé, James Donaghey, who have come to continue their research on the effects of seventy years of radioactivity on the region's marine life. Accompanying the scientists this time is James's fiancée, the buxom blond Ambrosia Anderson. Then there are the mutant barracuda. At the opening of the book, we learn of a new breed of these creatures that have hatched in the unnatural tidal surges. Without the mother barracuda to teach the new generation how to hunt and feed, they will have to stick together to survive. The three youngsters remain hidden inside the USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier that was sunk in the lagoon by an atomic bomb test, until they grow to full size. They become all the more menacing when they learn to communicate with each other by changing the colors of their scales. When a large Japanese consortium takes over the atoll's dive operations for a ceremonial homage to historic shipwrecks, Japanese scuba divers ignore police warnings dive into a world of peril. These and plotlines and more bring exciting, nonstop action and an explosive conclusion. Yet who knows what dangers remain hidden at the bottom of the lagoon!
About the Author: Mike Monahan served in the NYPD in the South Bronx for twenty years, retiring as a detective. For almost thirty years, he has been a certified Professional Association of Diving Instructors dive master. He has been scuba diving all over the world and has a particular fascination with shipwrecks. He drew from both of these experiences to write his novel Barracuda II: The Return, the sequel to Barracuda. Now retired from the NYPD, Monahan lives in New York City.