Hard Core Justice

Following a successful, major drug bust by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, a vicious, Golden Triangle drug lord, code named “Maestro”, decides he will change the rules of the game. His shadowy assassins murder a family member of a senior DEA agent in broad daylight. The ripples from this act reach all the way to the White House, where President Reagan orders in the CIA to “Clean up this mess!” Two old school CIA agents from the long dormant, Vietnam War “Phoenix Program”, are chosen to lead the revenge using friends from the Thai Border Police, also bloodied veterans of the Phoenix wars. Fighting corruption within Thailand’s inner circles, risking compromise at every turn, the team’s reliance on covert skills leads them to the lair of the vicious “Maestro”. There cannot be a partial victory, only death to those who fail. Based on a true story, this novel takes the reader through the seamy back streets of Thailand, into the very dens of the drug trade where echoes of the Vietnam War’s brutal legacy hold sway.

Howard Altermatt was born in New Milford, Connecticut, where he completed his formal education. Upon graduation, rather than going on to University, he chose to follow the more exciting path of heavy construction building dams and constructing bridges. Taking time off to attend University at spaced intervals, he followed his chosen course in Construction reaching Superintendent level by age 28, eventually receiving his diploma, graduating Summa Cum Laude from Black and Blue U and the School of Hard Knocks. His hands-on construction experience led him to Vietnam in 1966 where he was seconded to the Army Engineers and spent the next four years as an Advisor on the Army’s extensive marine construction and bridge building programs. It was during those war years that he met up with the operatives whose later exploits led to his writing of Hard Core Justice. After Vietnam, his work steered him to Thailand where he used Bangkok as a base of operations while extending his career throughout South East Asia and beyond. He spends his retirement years in Thailand with his wife Sukanya, traveling frequently between Bangkok and New England in order to keep tabs on their three young grandchildren. At the ripe young age of 78 years, Howard cranked up his computer in order to write “A story that needed to be told”.