White Sands

Jacket Bride, a fatherless 13-year-old Bahamian boy, is out crabbing late one night when a drug-laden plane crashes nearby, killing the crew. Jacket buries the cocaine, kicking off a take-no-prisoners plot. When the wrong boy is caught and tortured to death by the traffickers who were expecting the drugs, honest local cop Skelley turns to Trent, a retired British Secret Serviceman and the star of three previous thrillers by Gandolfi (Ibiza Beach). Skelley knows the bad guys will be after Jacket, who's vanished, and expects no help from his colleagues (in the corrupt former administration, local narcs ""left deliberate trails so that the opposition would... know who to bribe"")--or from the Americans, who don't care about one fatherless Caribbean boy. As Trent begins a frantic search, Jacket makes his dreamy way in the big town of Nassau, where he's pursued by a horde of local and DEA officials, as well as by the drug runners, right up to a bloody, storm-tossed climax. The sizzling plot is enlivened by a large cast of colorful characters, including a vicious American wannabe drug runner, a beautiful Bahamian marine zoologist trapped by racial prejudice and the disaffected upper-class Trent, who's seen too much violence and knows only that it is ""irrevocable."" This tale should win Gandolfi, who lives in the Caribbean, many converts in the States. U.K. and translation rights: Orion UK; dramatic rights: Christopher Little. (Feb.)