Joachim Bamrud

Read Panama Jack, the exciting international action thriller from award-winning journalist and Latin
America expert Joachim Bamrud. Inspired by Ian Flemming's James Bond and Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, Bamrud has created a thriller set around veteran CIA agent Jack Dallas and the Panama Canal, one of the world's key transshipment points for cargo traffic. Other locations include Shanghai, Miami and Monte Carlo.

PRESS & REFERENCES

Eric Jackson, The Panama News
Part of the basic premise of the plot is physically improbable for anybody who knows the dimensions and operating procedures of the Panama Canal -- but I won't tell you what that problem is, because this is an entertaining little thriller and if I pointed out the technical problem it would give too much of the plot away. I wouldn't want to spoil a good read. If you run across a copy of this little thriller, buy it. Improbable as this story might be, it's good entertainment for the rainy season days to come.

FLY SOLO: The 50 Best Places on Earth For a Girl to Travel Alone (Perigee, Penguin Books) by Teresa Rodriguez Williamson.
Panama Jack by Joachim Bamrud explores the question on everyone's mind -- what happens if someone else takes over the Canal, like China?

Robert McMillan, former chairman, Panama Canal Commission
Really enjoyed (the) book very much, and I am generally not a reader of novels -- more into non-fiction. As a former Chairman of the PCC, it brought back a lot of memories. Reading it was some where between James Bond and John Grisham.

Robert Baker, president, American Chamber of Commerce in Panama
Read the book and now I want to see the movie. Very creative and good action

La Prensa newspaper, Panama
Following the tradition of John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama, Panama Jack is a new spy novel that explores the U.S. fear of an eventual Chinese control of the Panama Canal. Written by journalist Joachim Bamrud, the work of fiction takes advantage of the concerns by U.S. leaders that China will become a nuclear threat to the canal area or deny access to US ships.

THE PLOT

In 1999, Admiral Thomas Moorer, the former chairman of the the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged that China planned to take over the Panama Canal and use the area to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. In the U.S. Senate, Trent Lott, the then-Republican Senate Majority Leader, expressed concern that the Chinese could deny U.S. ships passage. Now, a CIA informant in Panama with possible information on the Chinese take-over has been killed and the agency has to again look at the potential Communist threat. It steps up its investigation by sending veteran CIA agent Jack Dallas to find out the truth. A former Navy diver, Dallas has to dive deep into the canal and the Hong Kong company that runs the canal ports. His investigation leads him to a prominent businessman in Shanghai, bankers in Monaco and Russian mobsters in Miami before finding out the stunning truth and racing to prevent a major catastrophe in the canal.

LIVED IN PANAMA

Bamrud has lived in Panama twice - in the early 1990's, right after the U.S. invasion that ousted strongman Manuel Noriega, and in the late 1990's, when Panama was preparing to receive the canal from the United States. During that time he was able to travel throughout the country in locations ranging from the Gatun Lake, where he spent a night while crossing the canal, to the stunning San Blas islands and the more luxury environment of Contadora Island, featured in Panama Jack.