Dale Soderberg

The Amsterdam Connection Dale Soderberg

When Bernie Villario, son of a Mafia family based in Connecticut and New York, decides to re-enter the U. S. narcotics market despite the fact that all Mafia families except two have been out of drugs for years, he needs an adequate supply of heroin. This requires convincing a Union Corse family with heroin processing labs in southern France to work with him. Villario selects a highly respected U. C. family and uses a dangerous ploy which threatens to explode into a war between the families. At the same time Villario starts pressuring feisty Tom Matthews and his Tampa-based travel agency. The agency's success is the second piece to Villario's elaborate plan. However, although Matthews refuses to bend even in the face of vicious attacks on his agency and its European tours, he finally realizes that fighting a foe who appears only through a polished intermediary is futile. Frustrated and desperate, Matthews turns to the FBI and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Throughout Villario's attacks, Tom leans more and more on his knowledgeable Hispanic secretary, Maria Escobar, and as the battle moves from Tampa through Europe to the Middle East and back, Maria and he are drawn into an intense, intimate love affair which drives him into decisions he never anticipated. The fast-paced conclusion which involves Matthews, the feds, the Villarios, and the Union Corse is headed toward a disaster of magnificent proportions, especially when Matthews and the feds unknowingly work at cross-purposes.