Callie Awakens, book I

A New Thriller by author Rip Converse. MS-13 has brought evil to the streets of Fort Myers. They are kidnapping young girls off the streets, addicting them to drugs, and forcing them into prostitution. The police are helpless; all their witnesses either end up in pieces or suffer profound memory loss. Business is pretty good for the gang until one evening their ‘snatch crew’ runs into Callie, an unlikely Samaritan. She’s a sixteen-year-old girl, just 5 feet tall, who rides a Ducati Monster 796. She also happens to be a gifted student of the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga.

Callie is two years ahead of her classmates and socially isolated from them by her genius IQ and the principled, ambitious, self-determined approach that she brings to everything she does. She’s determined to become a commercial ship captain and after her father, a shrimper, refuses to give her needed sea time or support her career choice in any way, she moves to Boca Grande and into the home of a wealthy aunt who empowers her in ways she’d never imagined. Callie gets a job on a commercial ferry to advance her sea time and also starts training in the brutal martial art of Krav Maga to help her compensate for her tiny stature.

When she returns home in the Fall and interrupts an attempted MS-13 abduction and takes down two gang members in the process, she and her family become targets of the ruthless gang and she finds herself in over her head. Fearing for Callie’s life and the lives of her family, Aunt Nancy gets in touch with Jesse McDermitt and Billy Rainwater (two of Wayne Stinnett’s iconic characters) and its game on with Callie, Billy, and Eva Dahan (Callie’s Krav Maga instructor), up against MS-13. Callie will survive, but at what cost to her and those around her?

Callie is the opposite of a snowflake. Think “Rhonda Rousey with a genius IQ and attitude.” She's a physical, positive, quirky, hardworking, principled, unstoppable force with an insatiable appetite for learning new skills, setting ambitious goals, and doing whatever it takes to achieve them. If you like strong, independent, female characters, you'll love Callie. This is book I of a new series. Available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097QPZD5K .