Bogata, Colombia, Summer 1981—Becky Kendall and Michelle Talley thought they had escaped their harrowing past. Fleeing a deadly confrontation with Jamaican cocaine traffickers, they found themselves with $5 million in drug profits and a luxury condo—a seemingly perfect hideout. But the shadows of their previous lives refuse to fade.
As cartel violence erupts around them, Becky and Michelle plan their return to Florida. Yet their every move is shadowed by Gordon Gecht, a ruthless enforcer determined to recover money he believes is rightfully his. Joining forces with Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s King of Cocaine, Gecht orchestrates a deadly game of cat and mouse, dragging Becky’s estranged husband, investigative journalist Jack Kendall, into the fray.
Jack arrives in Bogotá fiercely determined to find Becky, only to find himself caught in a high-stakes battle for survival. The streets of Bogotá turn into a deadly maze where trust is a rare commodity, and every decision could be his last.
Blending heart-pounding suspense with gripping drama, Becky is a tale of betrayal, resilience, and the unrelenting fight for justice. As the clock ticks, Jack must face his demons and confront a relentless killer—and a city with secrets deadlier than he ever imagined.
Bogata, Colombia, Summer 1981—Becky Kendall and Michelle Talley thought they had escaped their harrowing past. Fleeing a deadly confrontation with Jamaican cocaine traffickers, they found themselves with $5 million in drug profits and a luxury condo—a seemingly perfect hideout. But the shadows of their previous lives refuse to fade.
As cartel violence erupts around them, Becky and Michelle plan their return to Florida. Yet their every move is shadowed by Gordon Gecht, a ruthless enforcer determined to recover money he believes is rightfully his. Joining forces with Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s King of Cocaine, Gecht orchestrates a deadly game of cat and mouse, dragging Becky’s estranged husband, investigative journalist Jack Kendall, into the fray.
Jack arrives in Bogotá fiercely determined to find Becky, only to find himself caught in a high-stakes battle for survival. The streets of Bogotá turn into a deadly maze where trust is a rare commodity, and every decision could be his last.
Blending heart-pounding suspense with gripping drama, Becky is a tale of betrayal, resilience, and the unrelenting fight for justice. As the clock ticks, Jack must face his demons and confront a relentless killer—and a city with secrets deadlier than he ever imagined.
9 a.m., Monday, Jan. 5, 1981
Becky Kendall sat in a comfortable chair on the porch of her three-bedroom luxury apartment that overlooked Bogotá’s upscale Zona Rosa neighborhood.
As she sipped her steaming cappuccino, street vendors below sold tourists food, jewelry, bags, and traditional handicrafts. She took a slow sip, savoring the warm taste, while her thoughts drifted back to the horrendous firefight in the Blue Mountains—a firefight in which she barely escaped with her life.
The pop of gunfire, the blasts of rockets, and the sickening cry of men dying came back with jarring clarity. Becky tightened her grip on the mug, sweat forming on her forehead as her memories replayed.
“Breathe,” she reminded herself. “That’s over now. I’m here. I survived.”
She looked for calm in the street scene. Zesty and flavorful aromas filled the air as patrons ordered breakfast in nearby cafés and restaurants. She soaked in the calm scene of one of South America’s greatest cities, a striking contrast to the traumatic two weeks spent in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.
Mornings like this, sitting on her balcony with the sunlight warming her face, brought her a brief reprieve. Yet, a moment later, her thoughts inevitably returned to the pain she felt.
Nearly six months after escaping the firefight, Becky still couldn’t shake the haunting memories of leaving her husband Jack and accepting Robert Mackey’s invitation to go to Jamaica.
After she arrived in Bogotá, she received good news from her Jamaican friend Rosa that Mackey had died during the battle on the mountain between two rival drug gangs.
She did not feel any sadness, only relief.
When she considered how wrong she had been, she thanked her lucky stars for visiting Jamaica with her childhood friend from Chicago, Michelle Talley.
Despite the trauma, Becky found a silver lining in the ordeal; Michelle kept her promise and gave Becky half the $5 million her former fiancé, Michael LeCare, who also died during the battle, had left in their joint bank account in Bogotá.
But the illicit cocaine money was not enough. She needed another change. What, she wasn’t sure yet, but she couldn’t shake the sense that something inevitable was coming.
Becky by Jay B. Greene is a 30,000 word novella, the second in a series featuring Florida journalist Jack Kendall. The series was introduced in Mountain Crossing, a 70,000 word novel that ended in a cliff-hanger, with Kendall’s estranged wife Becky fleeing to Bogotá, Colombia, with her friend Michelle after the collapse of the Jamaican cocaine empire in which they’d been imprisoned.
As this story opens, the women are living in luxury on the proceeds of the cocaine operation, but danger lurks nearby. Gordon Gecht, a survivor of the drug gang, pursues them to Colombia to recover the money he believes is his.
A chase ensues, which takes Becky and Michelle to the Salt Cathedral at Zipaquirá. As he did in his earlier book with the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, Greene describes the landscape and the cathedral in detail, making armchair travelers of his readers.
The action is fast-paced. In a novella, there is little time for nuance. One feels the tension as the pursuer closes in on the two women. They are aided by a local cab driver and hotel manager, but as Gecht forms an alliance with drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, the reader is never sure who to trust.
While Jack Kendal is the series’ protagonist, he appears only in Becky’s reminiscences until halfway through the story and then as the result of a surprising twist. While many books in a series are self-contained, allowing the reader to dive in without having read previous entries, that is not the case here. To understand Jack’s motivation and his tangled relationship with Becky, one has to have read Mountain Crossing.
That doesn’t detract from the enjoyment one takes from this yarn, which can be read in about an hour. The novella contains plenty of action and a shocking development that turns the story on its ear. It ends with another cliff-hanger, telling us there is more to come in Jack Kendall’s career or journalism and adventure.