Mayfair resident John Lahm has published a novel, Bad to the Bone, about the arrival of a new species of shark that developed due to human medical waste seeping down through the Florida rock and coming out in offshore submarine springs.
“The novel has always been embedded in my mind,” he said.
Lahm has long had interest in events related to his novel. He successfully petitioned the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to approve a historical marker nomination for the Glomar Explorer, a famed spy ship built by the CIA in Chester using funds donated by Howard Hughes. The marker is outside the Independence Seaport Museum.
In addition, he contacted the United States Board on Geographic Names’ Advisory Committee on Undersea Features after the research vessel NR-1 discovered a submarine spring. He asked that the spring be named the NR-1 Hole, a request that was granted. Today, all National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ocean charts include the NR-1 Hole.
“They were my main interests,” Lahm said of the Glomar and NR-1. “And the novel was cool.”
The story covers 269 pages. It is based at Kings Bay, a nuclear submarine base in Georgia, in the late 1970s. A Navy base is being built, along with a four-lane highway connecting to I-95. Dredging threatens to destroy some of the plant life and burial sites of the Timucua people who inhabited land first in southeast Georgia and northern Florida.
Then, a laborer goes missing in a drowning accident. A rogue predator with stone-like black teeth is suspected. That threatens tourism in coastal communities. The predator likes the taste of humans. Even a 5-ton whale is not safe.
The danger travels up to New England.
The Glomar Explorer, with a 400-ton lifting capacity, even makes an appearance. The floating dredge is needed to hoist up a 150-ton mound of limestone.
Bad to the Bone is available in paperback for $19.95 and Kindle for $6.95.
Lahm worked with Seaworthy Publications:
https://seaworthy.com/product/bad-to-the-bone/, [email protected] or 321-610-3634.
The book is also available on amazon.com. ••
