The Admiral of Bolivia — John Mandeville

This book has made the finals for the Somerset Awards for Literary, Mainstream, and Contemporary Fiction 2016.

This is a tale from the old chief about "Mike the Rooter," an obnoxious, overweight firefighter from the Bronx. The kind of bloke who would probably get himself picked off third, representing the tying run, with two outs in the ninth. The story starts off innocent enough, but deteriorates into an absolute mish-mash of plots and counter plots.
The story starts with Mike being forced into a vacation to Bolivia by wife Mary (a telemarketer got ahold of her). There, he meets some strange and interesting characters, which of course includes: "The Admiral of Bolivia." Following, he and five of his scheming firehouse buddies accidently get involved in the local politics of: Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.
Their adventure includes: violent vehicle crashes, a mysterious silver mine and its guardian "El Diablo," furious gunplay, the world's most unusual boxing match, two massive explosions, a strange romance, Lake Titicaca, harrowing firefighting and heroic rescues, secret agents, a submarine, the Pope himself -- what else can you ask for? Laughs? We have some of those too. At the end of the tale,