Stewart Riley, a 45-year resident of Denny Blaine, and first-time book author recently had his book, “Helena Star: An Epic Adventure Through the Murky Underworld of International Drug Smuggling,” published by Robert D. Reed Publishers. It will be released for purchase in bookstores and from Amazon Jan. 8.
The book is a nonfiction work and documents events that took place primarily in the Northwest in and around Seattle. The book details events in April 1978 when the U.S. Coast Guard seized an aging freighter off the Washington coast. According to the press release, the freighter’s hold was filled with 37 tons of marijuana — the West Coast’s largest pot bust — worth an estimated street value of $74 million. Riley, the attorney for the Helena Star, provides an insider’s account of the case.
The 230-page book is already available for purchase on Kindle and will be available at Madison Books. People can purchase it beginning Jan. 8 on Riley’s website, stewriley.com.
Riley graduated from the University of Washington Law School in 1969. He practiced law in Seattle as a senior deputy prosecutor in the King County Prosecutor’s Office for three years before becoming a criminal defense attorney.