As the Crow Flies: The Redemption of an International Drug Smuggler Book

                                       

  Staring a life sentence in the face has a way of changing people. Pilot and drug smuggler Freddie Crow made a lot of bad decisions — and the last one grounded him for good. But that’s when the real story begins. As the Crow Flies: The Redemption of an International Drug Smuggler is the captivating, true story of Crow’s journey toward forgiveness as told by Ed Hudson, one of the law enforcement officers on the case.

Freddie Crow once felt right at home in a Cessna surrounded by 800 pounds of marijuana. Living on the edge gave his life meaning. But decisions have consequences, and right now he was faced with a doozy: testify against his partners in crime or spend the rest of his life in prison. Making the right decisions had never been his strong suit, but this time around, he couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

  Crow grew up in a small town in northwest Florida and developed a taste for excitement at an early age. He learned to fly when he was just a teenager and parlayed that talent into a lucrative career, piloting planeloads of marijuana from Central America into North Florida. He had the highly sought-out ability to navigate a plane so low over the Gulf of Mexico that he could actually fly under the radar. But that didn’t mean his penchant for ferrying drugs went completely unnoticed.

   Ed Hudson was a law enforcement officer tasked with putting the brakes on smuggling operations like Crow’s. The two men had chosen paths that were initially pointed in opposite directions, but they were about to intersect.

 

   While Crow busied himself flying in loads of contraband, the team of determined law enforcement officers along with a prosecutor worked diligently to build the case against Crow. Their perseverance paid off, and the walls around Crow crumbled. Facing a life sentence, he opted to cooperate with officials in exchange for a reduced sentence, and an unlikely bond between Hudson and Crow formed.

 

   Upon his release, Crow sought forgiveness from his friends, his family, his country and God. He found redemption, and he met the love of his life. Then the bottom dropped out.

 

   As the Crow Flies is a real story about real people and how their choices impacted those around them. It’s a story about family. It’s a story about forgiveness. It’s a story about two people, once on opposing sides of the law, who came together and became friends — as if directed by God — just in time for a life sentence of a different kind.

 

   Author Ed Hudson grew up in rural Northwest Florida, where he spent his youth working on farms, toting bricks and blocks, making mortar for his father’s masonry business and attending school. He later earned an associate of science degree in law enforcement and a Bachelor of Arts degree in criminal justice administration. He worked with the Century Police Department and as a deputy at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department, where he patrolled the highways for nine years. In 1990, he transferred to the narcotics unit and became a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) in 1993.

 

   Hudson worked a variety of cases with his fellow FDLE agents along with agents from the DEA, ATF, U.S. Customs and Secret Service. He was promoted to Special Agent Supervisor in 2004 and remained in this position until retirement on October 1, 2014.

 

   Today, Hudson spends his retirement gardening and fishing whenever possible. He enjoys time with his granddaughters, especially when fishing, and with friends if they’re going fishing.  He serves his community through the Walnut Hill Baptist Church and as a member of the Walnut Hill Ruritan Club, an organization that lends a hand to those in need. Then he goes fishing. As the Crow Flies is his first bookand you can purchase it on Amazon here.

    I highly recommend you purchasing this book, it is true and very, very good!  

* Thank you to Ascot Media for allowing me to review this book.

*The words in this review are true to all my knowledge

*I was allowed to review this book free of charge in exchange for a honest, written review.