PALMS, PARADISE, POISON

A Caribbean copper hunts an escaped killer.

Constable Teddy Creque of the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force has a long history with troublesome women. So when he hears that the convict who escaped from prison on Tortola is Marianna Orro, aka Queen Ya-Ya, he knows that he’s going to be in for it. But first he has to deal with another equally deadly female: Hurricane Leatha, which is bearing down on Anegada, the little island it’s his sworn duty to protect. Kevin Faulkner, a seasoned fisherman who should know better, has sailed out into the storm in his boat, Isabella, and Teddy must take the police skiff Lily B after him. What he finds when he catches up to Isabella is one dead Kevin and one very much alive Ya-Ya. He locks the 6-foot-tall escapee in his local jail, but when he comes back from another rescue in Pomato Point, the cell is empty. No one can explain how the majestic Ya-Ya managed to escape again, although when Nanny Giles reports her boat, the Horse-eye, missing, he has an idea where she went. And when the Horse-eye turns up on a deserted beach in Cuba, Teddy gets the surprise of his life: The RVIPF is sending him to Cuba to bring it back. In Havana he meets the woman who may be the scariest of all—Subteniente Luz Garcia of the Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, whose revolutionary fervor is matched only by her devotion to the orishas of Santeria—and she takes him on a ride that makes Leatha look tame.

The battle between rational, supernatural, and criminal provides a tropical treat like no other.