The Hole Truth

Petroleum engineering professor Tony Zanatelli signs a summer-job contract to manage the drilling of a 20,000-foot-deep exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico. Energy-company MillPet owns the lease and the well and pays all the bills. After millions have been spent to drill into the deep seismic target, confidential geologic data will reveal to Tony and MillPet a hidden treasure of oil and gas, or that the well is a dry hole. Either way, professor Tony will go back to his soulmate wife and his academic life, and MillPet will continue to thrive. Well, maybe. Because the truth, the whole truth, about what resides deep in the hole is targeted by conspirators who will kill to prove neither life nor truth is bulletproof. THE HOLE TRUTH, a technical crime thriller driven by a RICO conspiracy, is a work of fiction. THE HOLE TRUTH is the author’s debut novel. It follows his two data-based books (THE SIMPLE TRUTH and FROM THE PODIUM) about the cause of BP’s 2010 Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The author’s books benefit from his education in petroleum engineering, ocean engineering, and business, as well as his full career as a professor, drilling engineer, and energy executive.