Cargo'd

What happens when, on a trip to discover yourself, you end up discovering a plot to destabilize a peaceful island population, hatched by the CIA, a renegade surfer, and a Bonobo?The only reason Jennifer has for agreeing to go on a graduation vacation with three almost-friends was to find out if that kiss her and her roommate shared a year and a half earlier meant anything. Instead, they meet a shady salesman in a shifty bar in Key West and end up on the island of Dondesta, a place so mysterious the conquistadors refused to put it on a map four hundred years earlier.There, among a native population almost completely untouched by modern civilization, she meets The Surfpirate, an enigmatic expatriate who seems to hold a revered spot in the island's culture. It is only as a hurricane threatens the island that Jennifer learns the secrets of the island, how it all began, and how much responsibility The Surfpirate has for what the future might hold.First introduced in book four of The Tricky Dick Key West Mystery series, "Red Skies At Midnight," The Surfpirate is seemingly a contract player for hire to the highest bidder, working throughout the Caribbean. "Cargo'd" is as much an origin story as it is an adventure through the world he has come to inhabit, and how he was in a position to become part of the Tricky Dick legend."Cargo'd" reads as both a comedic (and possibly romantic) romp through the tropics as well as holding up a fun-house shaped mirror to the world of American colonialism, the consumer culture, and white privilege.