Haitian Pick-up is the latest in the series of the adventures of Jim and Julia who work their holidays on a marine research vessel firstly in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) (Abalone Summer, recipient of the Arthur Ellis Award for crime writing) where they encounter abalone poachers, and later in the Turks and Caicos Islands of the Caribbean. Hogsty Reef and Rare and Endangered are more boating adventures, the first dealing with the drug trade, while the second focuses on the trade in endangered animals.
Haitian Pick-up takes up the story when Marcel, the Haitian refugee boy who shared Jim and Julia's adventures on Hogsty Reef, returns to Bottle Creek research station. He brings the unsettling news that his brother, whose whereabouts was previously unknown after he had been taken into custody for political activism in Haiti, had been found alive in a military prison in Port au Prince. The operation to spring the brother from jail takes place during the time of the military dictatorship after the popular politician Jean Aristide is forced from power. A United Nations blockade is in force as pressure mounts on the military to relinquish control. This is a book of high adventure, set in disturbing times where the norms of what is right and what is necessary are challenged. It is also an authentic, hard core boating adventure.
Abalone Summer (#1 in the series) received the Arthur Ellis Award for best Canadian juvenile crime novel.
Hogsty Reef (#2 in the series) chosen ABA 1999 Pick of the Lists by American Booksellers Association.
