Blood Tide

By Thomas P Hopp

When Erik Torvald, a licensed digger of giant geoduck clams, is found dead of a massive dose of red tide toxin, McKean is called in by police to use his biotechnological genius to unravel the mystery. Did Torvald die simply by eating some of the clams he dug? Or, given the huge quantities of toxin in his bloodstream, was he poisoned? If so, how? And by whom? McKean and his sidekick Fin Morton follow the trail deep into the local Native American culture, encountering resistance both as outsiders and as people who may threaten several native suspects in the case. Among these is Henry George, an old derelict man with shamanistic medicine skills and a deep-seated grudge against modern culture. Other clues lead to risky encounters with non-natives who have ties to both drug dealers and the clam fishing industry.

As McKean pursues the case, relying on his labs to study the lethal toxin, he discovers that someone has begun to pursue him. The question soon becomes: can Peyton McKean solve the mystery before he himself becomes the Blood Tide's next victim?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas P Hopp
• Release date: Jan 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465707154

Thomas P Hopp

Thomas Patrick Hopp routinely imagines the unimaginable. He writes science fiction and mystery thriller novels that draw on his background as a scientist and scholar of the natural world in all its glory and terror. His stories have won multiple literary awards and garnered him a worldwide following. He is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and served for several years as President of the Northwest Chapter of MWA. Tom is also an internationally recognized molecular biologist. He discovered powerful immune-system hormones and helped found the multi-billion-dollar Seattle biotechnology company Immunex Corporation. He advised the team that created Immunex’s blockbuster arthritis drug Enbrel. He developed the first commercially successful nanotechnology device, a molecular handle for manipulating proteins at the atomic level, which is used by medical researchers around the world to study human cells and every major microbe known to science.Tom’s NORTHWEST TALES are thrillers set against backdrops of disaster, whether natural or man-made. Earthquakes, eruptions, and epidemics are grist for these gripping adventures. Tom’s mystery stories follow Dr. Peyton McKean, a super-intelligent sleuth known as “The Greatest Mind Since Sherlock Holmes.” Viruses, microbes, and evil geniuses form the core of his opposition. Tom’s DINOSAUR WARS science fiction stories read like “Star Wars meets Jurassic Park.” Featuring laser-blasting space invaders and huge beasts from the past, they follow Yellowstone Park naturalist Chase Armstrong and Montana rancher’s daughter Kit Daniels, who struggle to survive in a world where dinosaurs live again. Most of Tom’s tumultuous adventures are suitable for readers young and old.

Book preview

BLOOD TIDE

Thomas P. Hopp

A Peyton McKean Mystery Short Story

This was the lead story in the Seattle Noir anthology. It is expanded here to better explore the culture of the Duwamish Tribe. I feel connected to them because my earliest childhood days were spent in a housing project on the banks of the Duwamish River. My feet were often wet with that dark river mud.

First Edition copyright 2009 Thomas P. Hopp

Smashwords Editions copyright 2012, 2016 Thomas P. Hopp

CONTENTS

Franky Squalco

Aunt Clara

Henry George

Billy Seaweed

A’yahos

About the Author

Books by Thomas P. Hopp

Franky Squalco

When we arrived at Herring’s House Park in West Seattle, a police officer was clearing off the yellow warning tape and packing his forensics bags and boxes. He was closing the case of an odd death in a parking lot and moving on. Kay Erwin, epidemiologist at Seattle Public Health Hospital, had declared it shellfish poisoning and cops had quickly lost interest. Peyton McKean, however, was of a different mindset. Bundled in his green canvas field coat against the clamminess of the day and a fine drizzle, his head dry under an olive green canvas Stetson safari hat, he moved around the lot quickly, getting a perspective on what had happened forty-eight hours before. As he did so he interrogated the young cop rapid-fire while the man rolled up a length of crime-scene tape.

The body lay here? McKean drew an imaginary oblong line around an area of wet gravel with black-leather-gloved hands.

Uh huh, the officer answered. His neutral tone suggested he didn’t want to encourage McKean. He wadded the tape into a black garbage bag.

And the victim’s pickup—parked here? McKean’s long-fingered hands sawed a transect line from the row of concrete parking bumpers out into the lot.

’At’s right. The officer cinched the bag and then paused to watch amusedly as McKean hurried about, his lanky legs marching off distances, his hands tucked behind his back like some gangly schoolteacher. I knew McKean was worried he would lack some detail of the circumstances surrounding Erik Torvald’s death when the last cop who had seen Torvald face-down in the parking lot was gone and done with the case.

The officer gathered up the remaining pieces of tape and put them into the bag and then shut the bag into his squad car’s trunk. When he got in and reached to close the door, McKean called, Anything else I should know?

Nuttin’, the cop mumbled. He slammed the door, fired the engine, and backed out of his spot. He made a half-friendly wave at McKean as he drove off, leaving us alone in the lot beside my midnight blue Ford Mustang.

I zipped up my windbreaker against the drizzle that had begun as soon as we got out of my car. Shaking off a chill, I asked McKean, Aren’t you ready to go yet? I want to get out of this rain.

He stood without answering for a few moments, his naturally long face made longer by a brooding expression. There’s more here than meets the eye, Phineus Morton, he eventually replied.

"There’s not much here to meet my eye, I said. Just a parking lot of wet gravel, a deserted park full of bare-branched alder trees, a few gravel footpaths, a dozen big mud-puddles, and beyond that a very gray and chilly-looking Duwamish River. But I don’t see anything like a clue. Maybe the cops are right, Peyton. Maybe he just had a bad case of shellfish poisoning. Don’t you think that’s possible?"

Answer: no, McKean retorted, his dark eyes lit with intellectual light. The levels of red tide poison in him were without precedent. Off-scale by any measure. To get the dose Kay Erwin found in his blood, he’d have to have eaten ten buckets of steamers and a dozen geoducks. McKean pronounced the last word with proper Native American diction—gooey-ducks—referring to a uniquely Northwestern variety of huge clam, the size and shape of which has been compared to the endowment of a stallion. And yet, he went on, "the coroner’s assessment of his stomach contents implied he hadn’t eaten a bit of shellfish. Moreover, my ultrasensitive immunoassay for shellfish antigens in

Reviews for Blood Tide

[kendrafitz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this was a good one, but i don't really remember much from it =/ hmmm i guess I'm gonna have to read it again to remember why i instantly remember it with a smile haha

[amanda_r_26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun and entertaining read. I teared up once too. There was romance and action all in one. I enjoyed the independent nature that Trixie had and I LOVED Finley. Could only imagine having a pelican following me around like a puppy!

[stephy5g_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great book, and fun read. This is a great author who knows how to grab her audience and keep them entertained until the end.

[stewartry · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Maybe I should really avoid young adult-aimed books. But I think even when I was a young adult I would have hated this nonsense ... There is little textual indication of when or where this takes place, apart from ships that can wreck and leave bits of wooden hull here and there - the novella description says 1880, and then someone finally says something about living in the United States. The main female characters are given names which, had I been cursed with them, would have prompted me to divorce my parents the moment it was legally possible. The writing is juvenile to an extent that I am shocked the author is married with children. It is a viscous mass of cliches, and even as short as it is I could not force myself to finish it.