Dominion of the Lionfish — Lee Thompson

INSPECTOR AND SERGEANT battle the U. S. Embassy's declaration of diplomatic immunity in order to Kenaima drug cartel's operation to swamp Barbados and other small Caribbean islands with enough Carfentanil-laced cocaine to kill the population a hundred times over.CharactersThe protagonists are Peter Inch-Marlowe, a Barbadian police inspector and his sergeant Sebastian Brickhouse. Inch-Marlowe is enlivened by the novel's heroines: Erin, the scourge of the Lionfish; Vivienne Quimby, Inch-Marlowe's inamorata and underground operative; and Elizabeth Boothby-Hill, head of the Embassy's Office of Caribbean Affairs (CIA station chief).In the famous Round Barbados yacht race, the wife of the DEA Chief falls from the masthead of one of the thoroughbred racing yachts and disappears into the wind-driven surf. Inch-Marlowe and Brickhouse discover her body on Cattlewash Beach, and immediately, the Embassy blocks any investigation, aggressively asserting diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. For the Inspector suspicions abound. Three years earlier, another American diplomat had been found on a Bajun white-sand beach, dead from a gunshot to the head. Defying the Constabulary, the U.S. Embassy aggressively sought protection under the Vienna Convention, guarding the body and returning it to the United States. Inch-Marlowe saw his investigation summarily quashed. Now the Embassy is again insisting on sovereign immunity.Narrative HookIn the famous Round Barbados yacht race, the wife of the DEA Chief falls from the masthead of one of the thoroughbred racing yachts and disappears into the wind-driven surf. Inch-Marlowe and Brickhouse discover her body on Cattlewash Beach, and immediately, the Embassy blocks any investigation, aggressively asserting diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. For the Inspector suspicions abound. Three years earlier, another American diplomat had been found on a Bajun white-sand beach, dead from a gunshot to the head. Defying the Constabulary, the U.S. Embassy aggressively sought protection under the Vienna Convention, guarding the body and returning it to the United States. Inch-Marlowe saw his investigation summarily quashed. Now the Embassy again insists on sovereign immunity even though certain Embassy officials know who killed Carrie McEwen in the Round Barbados and who killed the Embassy's Regional Security Officer three years earlier. Naturally, these deaths are intertwined and comprise the underlying mystery of the novel. Determined to discover the link between the deaths of Carrie McEwen and the Embassy's RSO, Inch-Marlowe finds his efforts obstructed by the Embassy's Chargé d'affaires, who stands committed to protecting his own Ambassadorial prospects.Plot ResolutionOn the one side, there's the American Embassy exercising its power through the Vienna Convention and diplomatic immunity (familiar to the Anglosphere through the Harry Dunn/Anne Sacoolas case in the UK). On the other, there's the sophisticated, internationally-financed, and ruthless Kenaima cartel. Between these two forces are Inch-Marlowe, Brickhouse, and their rebellious allies (to wit, McEwen, Thompson, and Boothby-Hill from the Embassy itself). After the cartel murders Boothby-Hill, these two opposing forces come into explosive contact: ironically, a DEA drone battles against a Kenaima hijacked Q-boat. Inch-Marlowe and company survive and so win the fight, but barely. The novel ends in taut tranquility with the Embassy purged and Kenaima gathering its forces for another strike. Behind character and plot themselves, Dominion of the Lionfish presents commentary on government bureaucracies, exploring why their controlling officials serve narrow interests and why even the best bureaucracies often stun the public by failing to discharge what is accepted as their very reason for being.Controlling MetaphorLionfish are exotic-looking creatures with no natural predators in the dazzling coral reefs off the Caribbean islands. Multiplying in stupendous numbers, they are driving the indigenous fish to extinction — even as new, inexpensive, and highly lethal drugs, fentanyl and carfentanil, are being mixed with traditional cocaine along with tubers of tuberculous meningitis and sold to young people. No longer do we have a Pablo Escobar making himself vastly rich. The war here is policy by other means, a strategic initiative that bleeds countries dry and costs some 12 million deaths a year worldwide.