Barracuda Pens

THE FIFTH MACDUFF BROOKS FLY FISHING MYSTERY

Barracuda Pens opens in Cuba, on the southwest coast at Playa Larga near the infamous Bay of Pigs. A rising star in the U.S. House of Representatives goes missing which fly fishing after a trade mission in Havana. His sister, also a U.S. House representative, asks Macduff to go to Cuba to look her brother. Macduff and Lucinda both go to Cuba, Lucinda as a professional journalist/photographer doing an article for a Canadian magazine. Things go wrong and they have to escape Cuba in a most unusual way. Meanwhile several people, Cuban and U.S., express an interest in U.S. policy toward Cuba, and Cuban policy toward U.S.

Macduff and Lucinda become increasing involved with the disappearance of the representative, as well as the disappearance of Mcduff’s Cuban guide and the attempted killing of the Playa Larga hotel manager. Active participants include the Cuban Minister of the Interior and her son, the public relations officer of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, the CEO of the Miami based American Sugar Company, a long-time serving Florida member of the U.S. Senate, a cattle rancher in Montana, and the sole Montana member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Macduff’s daughter, Elsbeth, goes to Cuba with her friend Sue, on a student exchange, and ends up at Playa Larga where the two find something that confirms the U.S. Representative and the fishing guide were killed.  Macduff and Lucinda are concerned that Elsbeth may be unfairly subjected to dangers resulting from her living with them.