Showing results by publisher "Down Island Press" in All Categories

Charity Styles is a former Olympian and US Army helicopter pilot. Captured and tortured by terrorists in Afghanistan after the opening blows of the War on Terror, she has a score to settle. Now working for the Department of Homeland Security, she is offered the opportunity to make a real difference.

After watching his yacht burn to the waterline in a fiery explosion, Jerry Snyder is forced to make a deal with the only devil who can help track down a lead—his estranged, mob-connected father figure, Arlen Burkhart.

Miles from the laid-back lifestyle of No Name Key, and just shy of the raucous nightlife of Miami and South Beach, lies Coconut Grove, a tropical oasis with a distinct Bohemian flair. Lately, a seedy underside has emerged along the Grove's waterfront, preying on adventurous young women. Somewhere amid all the glitz and glamour, hides a thief who stole a fortune in Aztec emeralds. Or did he? Jesse McDermitt must first determine if the victim herself is a thief. The trail of clues leads him to evidence that the thief may be involved in a string of more heinous crimes.

Jesse McDermitt lives in the backcountry and very little happens near him that he's not fully aware of. During a quiet moment, he watches a slow-moving shrimp trawler as it serenely cruises by, barely visible on the horizon at the edge of the three-mile limit. The tranquility of the moment is shattered when the trawler is suddenly demolished in an enormous explosion. What caused the explosion? And why was a woman from Jesse's past on board?

Coral branches rarely wear a wristwatch. That was Jesse McDermitt’s first thought when he found a partially denuded human arm, teeming with crab, lobster, and fish life, during his morning ocean swim. The discovery of a drifting mega-yacht the following day while fishing the Gulf Stream, causes quite a stir among the many alphabet agencies of the federal government, not to mention one shaggy canine.

Unbeknownst to Jesse, an environmentally conscious woman from his past has stumbled onto a drug manufacturing cartel in Virginia while working on a pollution mitigation problem. The cartel responds by sending someone to kill people Jesse cares for. A contract killer stalks the woman all the way to Miami, leaving bodies in his wake. With the help of an old flame in the FBI, Jesse goes to the snow-covered Appalachians to get to the root of the trouble: an unscrupulous prosecutor and dirty sheriff, who are producing LSD on an unbelievable scale.

Jesse McDermitt discovers an environmental nightmare of deception and greed taking place in Central America. A cartel is branching into smuggling things other than drugs. And they’re doing it quite effectively. Having so many moving parts and numerous smuggling routes, can Jesse and the crew of Ambrosia, on a dive vacation in the Bay Islands of Honduras, be able to make a difference? Or will the beautiful reef surrounding the island of Utila be Ambrosia’s grave?

It'd been a long time; a lot of things had changed. Since sailing away from Cane Garden Bay, Jesse McDermitt had changed. Waking one morning, the smell of rum still on his breath, Jesse realizes he doesn't much like the change anymore. The mask that he'd freely put on didn't fit right. It was the mask of a drifting, womanizing boat bum, and it concealed his inner turmoil. Peeling off the mask, he soon realizes what a mess he's in.

A rushed rescue mission doesn't go as planned for retired Marine Jesse McDermitt and the crew of Gaspar's Revenge. The two kidnap victims are rescued, but they'd rather be taken back to the Jamaican drug runners who were hired to kill them than return home to laid-back Beaufort, South Carolina, and give the man who wants them dead the chance to hire someone more competent. Crisscrossing hundreds of miles of open Atlantic Ocean, with a weather eye on a powerful hurricane, Jesse and his crew come up with a plan to lure out the man behind the double murder plot.

Jesse McDermitt has returned to the Florida Keys. But things in the islands are different now. The locals are worried, but nobody can explain why. A sense of foreboding hangs in the humid July air. One of the locals, an investment banker, is waiting tables at the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill. He seems a shell of the man he used to be—a hollow man whose fortune and wife are gone. Something very sinister is going on—Jesse smells it. He’s usually very good at rooting out the source of a problem, but is stumped this time.

Jesse McDermitt is starting a new chapter in his life. As captain of the research vessel Ambrosia, his mission is to study the oceans and seafloor, searching for rich oil deposits. His unstated mission is to locate and eradicate the enemies of society on behalf of Armstrong Research, a secretive organization funded by some of the richest men in the world. When word gets out about a massive drug and human trafficking cartel moving tons of illegal drugs, along with hundreds of slave laborers, out of Venezuela, Jesse is tasked with stopping them at all cost.

On a kayak outing with friends, Jesse's daughter finds and rescues a manatee suffering from respiratory problems. The red tide has returned, and fish are dying by the thousands, along with dolphins, manatees, and sea birds. The algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but this time it's much worse. Theories abound; it's something left over from the previous spring's coronavirus outbreak, it's caused by pollution, someone is intentionally creating a super-algae....But there's something far more sinister at work, and it's up to Jesse to find out what it is and put a stop to it.

On Grassy Key, things aren’t as idyllic as they seem. The quiet, sleepy community has been awakened. A young woman with strong ties to the community is missing. A local craftsman, the last person to see the girl, is questioned and released. The girl’s friends are interviewed. Nobody knows what happened to Cobie, except that she left for work one day and didn’t arrive. The only lead is the girl’s car, parked where she worked. But it provides no clues, and nobody saw anything. Days go by. Then weeks. The case grows cold.

Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Few people know this as well as Jesse McDermitt, retired Marine and former government operative. In the aftermath of an intense mission in coastal Mexico, Jesse wants nothing more than to get back to his boat; to just sail away and forget all about the firefight and his warrior past. Jesse is forced to don the warrior’s mask once again. This time to catch a ghoulish killer who is stalking the villages and jungles outside Belize City.

Paradise has a price. For Jesse McDermitt, that price is his moral compass and a bullet. The retired Marine and charter skipper takes on a passenger in Nassau, a young woman who is a breath of fresh air. She introduces him to the laid-back cruising crowd on an idyllic small cay in the Berry Islands. Jesse takes to the relaxing lifestyle like a fish to water. Living each day on its own terms is a new experience for Jesse, but it doesn't last long. Trouble always seems to find him.

When a small homemade boat drifts under the Seven Mile Bridge, Jesse McDermitt doesn’t hesitate to jump in and pull the boat ashore on Pigeon Key with an injured boy aboard. The boy provides more questions than answers. He’s believed to be a Cuban refugee, yet when he regains consciousness, he speaks perfect English, but can’t even remember his name.

The quiet and solitude found in the backcountry and wetlands of south Florida has been shattered. Someone is using explosives to fish the ecologically fragile patch reefs in the shallow waters of Florida Bay, north of the Keys. Retired Marine Jesse McDermitt doesn't like explosions in his backyard. Knowing his penchant for inserting himself in matters best left to the authorities, his friends withhold information from him about the destruction to the delicate, living corals. Jesse doesn't much like this, either.

Charity Styles has been wandering the Pacific aimlessly aboard her beloved sloop, Wind Dancer, and only recently returned to the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. Entering a secluded cove in the Sea of Abaco, in the Bahamas, she runs into an old acquaintance and the woman’s young daughter. The two have a few things in common, not the least of which are four men’s bodies at the bottom of a 600-foot-deep blue hole on Hoffman's Cay.

Charity Styles is a world class sharpshooter, martial arts expert, and government assassin...but after a stressful assignment, all she wants is a little time to unwind on the quiet side of St. Thomas, the picturesque Magens Bay. What does she get? A hurricane, an ex, drug dealers, a psychotic murderer, an amorous developer, and forced to stay in the rowdy tourist town of Charlotte-Amalie. Naturally.

A lifelong friend finds something deep in the Everglades that is so very odd, that when he calls Jesse McDermitt, at first the semi-retired former special operator is in total disbelief. But he is also very intrigued, and the duo set out on another adventure reminiscent of their childhood days. But their youthful quest had been all about fun and make-believe. This one was real, waiting nearly a century to be discovered.