An urgent commission from a dying friend sends sleuthing palm-tree grower Zack Chasteen off on his fifth Caribbean case.
Long before Zack was big enough to play for the Dolphins, Mickey Ryser, five years ahead of him in school, took him under his wing, taught him everything he knows and remained his buddy through thick and thin and adolescence. Now that Mickey’s ex-wife has died, it’s payback time. Mickey, who has only weeks to live, wants to reconcile with the daughter he hasn’t seen since she was a baby. But Jen has vanished along with the five friends she’d brought along to sail the Caribbean. Nor has Mickey heard a word from Abel Delgado, the Coral Gables private eye he’d paid $10,000 to find Jen. Bound to honor his old friend’s last request, Zack takes off for the islands, along with his Taino sidekick Boggy and his pilot buddy Charlie Callahan, to make a few discreet inquiries. In no time at all, he’s wanted by the Royal Bahamian Police for assault, arson and murder. Meanwhile, Jen is no position to enjoy the touristy local color, which has been gradually ebbing over the course of Zack’s first four outings (A Deadly Silver Sea, 2008, etc.), because she’s being held captive against her will.
Another amiable time-killer whose hero talks like Spenser and acts like Travis McGee without posing serious competition to either one.
