The story opens with part of the crew of a gun running fishing vessel waiting for the return of the captain and some of the crew who had gone ashore to explore a deserted island in that area of the Caribbean. Vicious marauders strike and the sole survivor, while fatally wounded, is able to transmit to the vessel that was to rendezvous with them.

That vessel is a huge container cargo freighter whose owners enjoy a secondary income from various smuggling ventures while lulling their consciences by not knowingly dealing with terrorist organizations or states. The ship is captained by Gabe Rio, who has very reluctantly returned to work in this organization knowing and disapproving of the smuggling. He is there to protect the job security of his first mate and brother Miguel who would be unable to acquire or hold any other job.

Also on this ship is the bookkeeper Tori, who had persuaded her bosses to let her take this trip as an adventure with the stated aim of looking for ways to save the company money. Tori kept both sets of their books, having little choice inasmuch as she is working under an assumed name while hiding from an abusive husband who believes her dead. Tori’s entire childhood was filled with other forms of abuse and she had come to expect little for herself.

Also aboard is the cook, Josh, who is a deep cover FBI agent trying to bring the two year investigation of the smuggling scheme to an end. Tori, knowing she is resented by the crew and captain as a spy for management, had volunteered to help Josh in the galley for something productive to do. The smoldering sexual tension between them underlies the story.

Infighting among the hierarchies of the FBI surface as the Counter-Terrorism unit has managed to create a believable scenario to bring this investigation within their purview and Josh’s partner is in a battle to prevent this as she waits for the signal from Josh that the freighter has made rendezvous with the gun smugglers.

The freighter arrives in time to talk with the sole crewmen before he dies and his wild story of the attackers and his injuries are inconsistent with reality. He does tell them the captain had been storing the guns on the island so they mount a search party to retrieve them. It is during the preparation for this that Josh’s identity is discovered and he is taken prisoner and unable to signal to his partner.

This reviewer will leave it to the reader to learn what the boarding crew discovers, and will merely comment that new characters in the personage of Dr. Alena Boudreau and her grandson Dr. David Boudreau, very, very highly placed members of a secret Department of Defense Agency, join the quarreling members of the FBI at the island.  

This novel is very memorable, for its originality, its complexities and its unique plot. Points of view continuously shift, humanizing each of the principle characters as they focus on a horror that may have had its origin in myth but is almost made believable by the science of the undiscovered and unknown.

--Thea Davis