Title: Tossed Overboard
Author: Garibaldi Sabio
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-5245-7974-6
Pages: 296
Genre: Legal / Thriller / Fiction
Reviewed by: John Murray
Pacific Book Review
Courtroom dramas are inherently engaging due to deft legal maneuvering, psychological games, and just straight intelligence versus intelligence. It’s about which side can present the facts in the most compelling way to support their cause, all while staying within the boundaries of the law. Tossed Overboard by Garibaldi Sabio takes the courtroom drama and weaves in a tense thriller subplot, resulting in an engaging action-packed story.
A shady merchant ship overworks and mistreats its deckhands, often fatally. In one case, the captain puts two deckhands on a small lifeboat adrift to fend for themselves. Those two sailors barely survive and manage to find their way to America. There, a law firm agrees to take on their case and hopefully bring the shipping company responsible to court. However, the firm needs definitive proof of wrongdoing. Enter, Rocky Stonebrook an elite PI with special skills perfectly suited to the assignment. Rocky adopts an appropriate persona and boards the merchant ship undercover. Things go awry and Rocky finds himself in increasingly mortal danger.
Instead of merely telling a courtroom tale, Tossed Overboard adds in Rocky’s misadventures to interesting effect. The entire journey from set up, to adopting the persona fully, surviving, and returning hope really hammer home how much effort was expended to help the overworked merchant dockhands. Everything is explained in extreme detail including Rocky’s coded message tactics, his covert abilities and more.
The actual courtroom scenes are equally intense. Both the prosecution and the defense share the spotlight as witnesses are examined, evidence presented and closing arguments are made. The entire proceeding is painted in vivid detail with a heavy hand. Much could have been written in narration of a story rather than explained in courtroom dialogue, thus this book has its challenges to plow through lengthy legal bickering and battling.
Tossed Overboard tells an action-packed tale of a PI driven to help those in need at any cost before swerving sharply into a heated legal drama. Two marginalized people attempt to bring down a giant company or at least receive some recompense and protection.
