Books by Brian Boland

Former Coast Guard officer Cole Williams is taking a big mental and emotional break. He''s hoping some time with an old buddy in the winter wilds of Newfoundland will calm the conflicts he''s feeling after a lifetime of running fast boats throughout the Caribbean on both sides of a brutal drug war. There is a lot for him to think about as he wanders through the fog and salty air of a remote seaside town. Cole is contemplating mistakes, misdeeds, and loss, trying hard to isolate himself from it all-but that can''t last. Before long, he''s up to his eyeballs in a dangerous plot involving drugs and guns that his old friend has discovered. Like it or not, Cole Williams must get back in a deadly game, operating as he always does in that little sliver of darkness between good and evil.

Living an idyllic life in the Normandy region of France, former Coast Guard officer and reformed drug smuggler Cole Williams wants nothing more than to put his turbulent past behind him. The lure of open seas still calls, but he's content to work at a bakery and spend quality time with the love of his life and a baby daughter they both adore. And then Cole's sordid smuggling transgressions suddenly surface like a marauding submarine. He's snatched back into a dark world where oceans are simply avenues for criminal enterprise. Blackmailed with threats of prison or worse, Cole is forced to join a small international team working to prevent the infiltration of terrorists into America. The plan is to plant him among smuggling rings running drugs, weapons, human beings, and any other lucrative cargo by sea into the U.S. via the Gulf of Mexico. Ensconced as a mole among brutal criminal bands, Cole must navigate dangerous waters to uncover a deadly plot that threatens thousands of innocents in his homeland.Cole Williams may not survive his return to sea, but he has no choice. To survive, he will have to swim with killer sharks or be eaten by them.Boland tells a thrilling tale...and he knows how to keep a reader turning the pages.--Timothy J. Lockhart, Virginian-Pilot

Cole Williams seemed born to the sea, racing sailboats and crewing yachts during his time as a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy, but when he reported aboard a cutter patrolling the Caribbean nothing he did seemed to please the command. His motivation to do the right thing always seemed to land him in hot water. At the end of a cruise in which he served admirably during open ocean rescues and hot pursuit of drug runners, Cole is unceremoniously kicked out of the Coast Guard for what the command deems reckless behavior and a bad attitude. That's when a dejected and disillusioned Cole decides to go rogue and make a few runs for the druggies he's spent so long chasing at sea. The twists and turns at that point are devious and dangerous as Cole shifts from modern-day pirate, to criminal fugitive to mole for his old service and the Joint Task Force charged with stemming the flow of illegal narcotics. While seldom in the headlines, the southern border of the United States has been a battleground for decades where the men and women of the Coast Guard and dozens of federal agencies have fought many a battle to keep illegal narcotics off the streets. In his debut novel, Brian Boland shares a story born from more than a decade of experience fighting the war on drugs.