Author Event: The Glass Eel by J.J. Viertel
Reading and book signing with local author Jack Viertel. He co-authored his debut Maine thriller, The Glass Eel, with his son Josh Viertel. Copies will be available to purchase at the event, or pick it up in advance at Blue Hill Books.
About J.J. Viertel
J. J. Viertel is the pseudonym used by the father-son writing team of Jack and Josh Viertel who live in Maine and New York. With Josh Viertel’s background in environmental activism and organic farming and Jack Viertel’s deep roots in storytelling and theater, the duo offers a novel that’s as grounded in real-life experience as it is gripping in plot. They mostly write in Szechuan restaurants, but occasionally retreat to a shared Google doc, or a sofa overlooking Eggemogin Reach on the coast of Maine. The Glass Eel is their debut thriller. Read more about the authors on their website.
About The Glass Eel
In this gripping debut thriller, struggling divorcée Jeanette King becomes embroiled in a criminal ring when she discovers her ex-husband’s cache of elvers—two-inch-long baby eels that fetch $2000 a pound on the black market.
Caterpillar Island is off the central coast of Maine—beloved vacationland of lobster bakes and quaint fried clam shacks, kayaking and country houses. At night, though, by the light of a headlamp, the island is alive with cash, guns, and poachers. Oxy addicts, struggling retirees, and unemployable deadbeats dip their nets in the creeks to catch elvers which are smuggled to Korea where they are raised then processed into unagi for the international sushi market.
Into this dark and dangerous world falls Jeanette King, who has, up to this moment, been earning her meager living mainly by picking and packaging peekytoe crab meat for shipment to New York and Boston. As Jeanette gets drawn into a fast moving story of risk and violent consequences she enlists the aid of a local policeman and an Indigenous activist. Together they try to set things right for the people and the planet, but the deeper they dig the more dangerous things get. An ensuing procession of colorful locals, corrupt state politicians, and treacherous outsiders weaves a tale that reveals the underbelly of a deadly business.