Fallen Palm

Retired Marine Corps veteran Jesse McDermitt has settled on a lonely island in the Florida Keys, where he runs a charter fishing outfit. His days are built around fishing, diving, and the easygoing rhythm of island life, and he expects nothing more. That changes when his longtime friend Russ dies in a scuba accident that looks wrong to Jesse. Russ's son later turns up in south Florida and asks Jesse to carry him out to a distant reef so he can scatter his father's ashes. During the trip the two men find evidence that Russ was murdered, and they decide to track down the unhinged killer together. Their search pulls them toward a terrorist cell operating in the Caribbean, a danger neither had expected. A woman who has come back to the Keys on a hunt of her own also draws Jesse's attention. Along the way the story brings in buried Spanish gold, fast boat chases, a deranged killer, a recruiter from a secret government agency, and a severe hurricane, none of which slows Jesse's determination to get revenge.