Island

by Thomas Perry

(1988)

Publisher: Avon Books

Island, first published in 1987 and long out-of-print, one of Thomas Perry’s most sought-after titles, is now available to readers in e-book format. The riveting and entertaining thriller follows a husband-and-wife con team on the run from the Mob, a soldier of fortune between jobs, a two-bit operator with grandiose dreams of tribal dynasty, a sultry CIA operative with divided loyalties, and the most dazzling defector ever to hurl a split-fingered fastball––twentieth-century buccaneers who wash up on a tiny island in the Caribbean and turn it into a multinational cash machine—but then the shooting starts.

Somebody is trying to invade the island, and that somebody could be anybody: the CIA, NSC or IRS; the most powerful, corrupt bank in the U.S. or the South American cocaine mafia—or it could just be the Los Angeles incarnation of the devil himself, a shadowy figure with a checkered past named Fat Jimmy…

Harry and Emma Erskine, two of the most adorable con artists, escape with a dangerous mobster’s money. They manage to get to Miami where they meet a Caribbean smuggler, Lord Carnavaron, and together with him and other criminals they enlist along the way, literally create an Island on top of an underwater reef. They develop it as an adventure destination at first and eventually an exotic attraction for the wealthy, especially those who have money to launder.