Clawhammer - Hardcover

Sam Llewellyn worked as an editor and fine art dealer until he decided that life was too short. Since then, his novels, published in twelve languages, have earned him a reputation as one of the world's master storytellers and writers of maritime thrillers. Many of his books are founded in personal experience. While researching them he has (amongst other things) chased pirates in the South China Sea, raced big-money multi-hulls in France, and run away from cocaine dealers in Spain.

As well as writing novels, Llewellyn has published half a dozen children's books, and works as a journalist for British and American newspapers and magazines such as the London Times and Daily Telegraph. He is a keen gardener, with added interests in ornithology and history and has also sailed yachts - several of which he built himself - all over the world. He now lives with his wife, award-winning children's writer and novelist Karen Wallace, and their two sons in a medieval house in the Welsh border country.

The murder of his activist sister and her husband while working on famine relief in Ethiopia sends George Devis, a modest, bird-watching sailor, on a voyage to America. He seeks to discover the cause of the murders and to implement his sister's last wishes. He hopes that through speeches and lectures he can raise funds for those starving in Africa, thus carrying on her work. In a brilliantly sinuous plot, Devis becomes entrapped by the media he believes are promoting his cause. Romance, heroics, and even country music are neatly interlaced in a gripping tale. Denise Perry Donavin