The Whistler (novel)

Plot

A mysterious source contacts the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct (BJC) promising information that will reveal the identity and crimes of the most corrupt judge in the history of the United States. Investigator Lacy Stoltz is assigned to the case, and takes her sometimes-partner Hugo Hatch with her to St. Augustine to meet the source in person. The source is revealed to be a disgraced lawyer from Pensacola named Ramsey Mix, now calling himself Greg Myers, who lives on a boat named The Conspirator. In this and subsequent meetings Mix/Meyers reveals that the judge in question is Claudia McDover of Florida's 24th Circuit, who resides in Brunswick County, in the panhandle of Florida between Tallahassee and Pensacola. Over the course of almost two decades of corruption, Judge McDover has aided the Coast Mafia in their scheme to build the Treasure Key casino in partnership with the Tappacola Indian Nation. Aside from skimming money from the casino itself, the Coast Mafia has also been responsible for many lucrative real estate developments in the vicinity of the casino, with any legal problems or challenges smoothed over by Judge McDover, who has been well paid in cash and condominiums. In addition, the Coast Mafia staged the murder of Son Razko, a prominent anti-casino member of the Tappacola Nation, and with the help of Judge McDover made sure that his right-hand man Junior Mace was falsely convicted of the crime. Mix/Meyers has been given this information by an intermediary representing an unknown "mole" close to Judge McDover.

Stoltz and Hatch begin to investigate the allegations before bringing any formal charges against Judge McDover. The leader of the Coast Mafia, Vonn Dubose, gets wind of the investigation and decides to retaliate. Stoltz and Hatch are lured to a rural part of Brunswick County by a member of the Tappacola Nation claiming to be an employee of the casino with important information. Driving away from the uneventful meeting, Hatch and Stoltz are deliberately struck head-on by a truck. Hugo Hatch is killed and Lacy Stoltz is badly injured. The escalation of danger involved with the case convinces the director of the BJC, Michael Geismar, to call in the aid of the FBI. The heavy-handed intimidation tactic that killed Hugo Hatch ends up being the undoing of the Coast Mafia, as the up-and-coming lieutenant tasked with its execution was inexperienced in such matters and left behind evidence at the scene of the crime and was also subsequently caught on video at a nearby all-night convenience store. Following this evidence, and helped by the former Tappacola Nation constable, BJC and FBI investigators find the Coast Mafia henchmen directly responsible for Hatch's murder and offer them reduced sentences in exchange for information and future testimony against those higher up in the Coast Mafia organization.

As their operation begins to unravel, Vonn Dubose and Judge McDover realize that information must have been leaked from someone close to one of them, and suspicion lands on Judge McDover's court recorder of seven years, Jo Hellen Hooper, who is in fact "The Whistler." Realizing her danger, Jo Hellen flees her job and home in Brunswick County to hide in a cheap hotel on Panama City Beach, but she is tracked there by a Coast Mafia hitman. With the help of Lacy Stoltz, Hooper manages to evade the hitman and the two drive to Valdosta, Georgia where they are met at the airport by Lacy's brother Gunther Stoltz, a real estate developer from Atlanta. Gunther flies the two women to western North Carolina in a private plane. There they hide in a lakeside cabin in the mountains while the FBI punishes Vonn Dubose and his partners in crime. Judge McDover is sentenced to 25 years in prison.