Taz Blackwell, former environmental negotiator and now a trouble-seeking drinker and romantic charmer, tries to find a new life and love against a backdrop of espionage, corporate blunderers and devious diplomats.
Escaping a failed marriage, Taz moves to the island of Chincoteague on Virginia's eastern shore, where he explores friendships with a cast of small-town misfits and romance with a beautiful but wary divorcee. Meanwhile, he fights a corporate land grabe on the shore and a shady billion-dollar mining play in the international Arctic.
Taz Blackwell, former environmental negotiator and now a trouble-seeking drinker and romantic charmer, tries to find a new life and love against a backdrop of espionage, corporate blunderers and devious diplomats.
Escaping a failed marriage, Taz moves to the island of Chincoteague on Virginia's eastern shore, where he explores friendships with a cast of small-town misfits and romance with a beautiful but wary divorcee. Meanwhile, he fights a corporate land grabe on the shore and a shady billion-dollar mining play in the international Arctic.
Chapter One
Serve You Right to Suffer
Good beginnings always start in the middle. Taz was sure about that much. It was just that he wasnât sure about this particular beginning. He was rubbing his cheek, picking off bits of the decayed rope he had coiled and used for a pillow. It was just before dawn, by the looks of it. Gray in every direction. A light drizzle fell through the mist. Out over the salt marsh the plaints of seagulls pierced the fog. Taz cast a bleary look around the floating dock. Low tide. Smell of damp salt and marsh grass. He heaved himself up to the deck. A deep rumble as a scallop boat thrummed down the channel toward the breakwater at the old bridge. He kneaded his neck. His collar was wet with dew.
Only his mouth qualified as dry. An army in dirty flannel boots had apparently marched over his tongue in the middle of the night.
Fuck me and fuck the whisky too.
Seemed like a good idea at the time. He tried to remember the sequence of events that had led to the brilliant inspiration to spend the night on the dock. Whisky, cigars, and poker with the crew of the Mary Dee, one of the scallop boats that made regular refueling stops on the Chincoteague docks. As usual, he had lost more than he had won. Afterwards, a long and unsuccessful flirtation with Roxy.
Howâd I even get here?Â
The Pony Pines, the islandâs only real bar, the one where Roxy presided, was a good mile-and-a-half away, down the Eastside Road facing the Assateague Channel. Taz looked around, unzipped, pissed into the dark water. At least the town cops hadnât found him curled up next to the Ski-Doos. The only thing for it was to head home and clean up.
He stepped gingerly along the wooden deck on the side of the old restaurant, closed now for two years. Sidled around a few spots where the planking was rotten and he could see through to the oily water. At the back, the deck opened onto a big gravel lot where folks used to park to drink at the old Chincoteague Inn. Not a vehicle in sight. Sharp gravel reminded him that he was barefoot. No clue where heâd left his shoes. Stepping tenderly across the gravel to Main Street, he headed east on Ocean Boulevard. Found his truck next to a yellow front-end loader in the vacant sand lot behind the Dollar Store. A twelve-year-old Toyota. She had once been red. âRusty but trusty,â he liked to say. Old Faithful. She started with the usual cough and growl and stink of gasoline. When, exactly, had he lost his way? And when had weâall seven billion of usâfucked everything up? Irrevocably.
Back at the cottage, he lit a gas burner, pulled a coffee cup out of the pile of dishes in the sink, drizzled what was left of yesterdayâs coffee into it, and tuned the radio to the local NPR station. Nothing there but bad news. He shut it off and searched for his current favorite record, John Lee Hookerâs only album on Impulse, a jazz label. Skipped the boogie-woogie and got right to the title track. He bounced the needle and cursed. A grim smile as he heard the deep, guttural voice, the voice of a man who had seen it all.
âServe you right to suffer. Serve you right to be alone.â The bass throbbed and the reverb on the guitar sounded as ghostly as ever. âThatâs why, thatâs why, thatâs whyâyou canât keep from crying.â
He splashed cold water on his face. Again. The image in the mirror was not bad looking, though it would be unlikely to end up on the cover of a fashion magazine. Wavy brown hair parted on the right, with touches of gray above the ears, just now more than a little mussed.
A red welt on his cheek from snuggling with the ragged hemp rope. Rust-colored stubble beard, shaved close, also flecked with gray. Nose just slightly crooked, broken in high school by a zealous center back. Eyes medium set under brows just prominent enough to give a convincing glower, or arch with a question. Brown with hints of green under unruly eyebrows. He brushed his hair, pulled out some tangles, winced. Hint of a smile as he finished the mental catalogue.
âYour doctor told you to take milk, cream, and alcohol . . .â
Taz rustled up some eggs for breakfast, ran through a quick inventory of the day. The heating ducts in the crawl space needed to be bracketed and taped. Figure two hours on that, then bike to the beach. Look for migrants along the way. Septemberâs good for godwits, or maybe a few early teal. Walk up the strand a mile or two. He had found a loggerhead turtle nesting there a week before. Wondered whether Ricky had a good-looking flounder fillet for dinner. Maybe just settle for a slice of pizza from Famous next to the Greek place down at the circle. Then a good stiff drink. Or two.
It wasnât the life he had imagined as he faced the roaring forties, as the Antarctic sailors would put it. Envisioning his future had never been his strong point. Much less designing it. Maybe he had just peaked too early. Policy deputy to the Secretary of the Interior in his early thirties; lead environmental negotiator for the State Department at thirty-seven. Two global treaties under his belt and an invitation to join Stateâs team at the United Nations in New York. Romanced and married the girl of his dreams. High times.
Then the country went crazy, the Supreme Court threw the election to the losing candidate, and Tazâs political status changed overnight from up-and-coming to boarding the Siberian Express. Canât blame politics, though. Thatâs like blaming the weather. Politics is something you navigateâor donât. If you wind up facedown in a ditch, maybe youâd better learn to pack a parachute.
There is much to like about Chilly Winds and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Taz Blackwell is a great hero to follow: a man with principle but not rigidly so; attractive to the ladies and not backward in charming them; vulnerable but not weak; a man of appetites and someone that you would want on your team, for sure.
He is complimented in this book by a supporting cast of fellow island dwellers who share sharp dialogue and good conversation and Yeagerâs realistic portrayal of Tazâs friendships adds much to this book, in some ways even more than the plot.
That is not to say that the plot is lacking in any way as Taz is drawn to deal with situations both on his home turf and internationally, the action of the book developing in both places. This was something that concerned me as having too much going on can sometimes lead to a book becoming conflicted in what it is trying to achieve: too many plots, too many characters, too many situations can work against each other but I neednât have worried. Yeager is able to move Taz between the two plots effortlessly, incorporating Tazâs attempts at love too seamlessly into the narrative as well, it all flowing at a steady pace.
In addition, Yeager is accomplished in his creation of place. Chincoteague Island and its environment, the people that inhabit it, the restaurants, the birds, the entertainment at the book store â all intertwine to give the island a comfortable feeling in you as a reader, a feeling like you could step in to it and recognise places from Yeagerâs descriptions. For me, this is the novelâs greatest strength as it is immersive and that is certainly something that I look for in a book.
A stylistic device that Yeager employs is that he uses song lyrics throughout the text. It reminded me of John Rebus in Ian Rankinâs books where music that is chosen to be mentioned is a part of the narrative, here used to convey the mood of Taz or the situations that he finds himself in and adding a learned quality to the narrative are the timely literary references that Yeager places in the text as well.
All that is left to add is that as a reader, I would be keen to visit Chincoteague Island again and the subsequent endeavours of Taz Blackwell.