The Passion Under the Flamboyante — Florence Kerigan

A letter from a law firm was the last thing Starr Eliot expected to find among her mail of a gray afternoon in Philadelphia. "Tell me what you know about your ancestor Gaston LeClerc," requested the senior partner when Starr met him at his office. She related the tale of the wealthy plantation owner who had fled to the United States from Haiti during the slaves' revolt of 1801. It was a story to which Starr gave little credence, assuming it had been embellished to suit the imagination of a child.

The lawyer not only verified Starr's tale, but added a new dimension to it: and invitation to seek the family treasure, buried by Gaston at the chateau, with three distant cousins whom she had never met. Spurred by her inclination for adventure, Starr set out for Haiti, leaving behind the comforting familiarity of her apartment, her job, and Harvey, her kind but overly sensible boy friend.

Starr was delighted to meet her cousins--Antony and Jerome LeClerc, elderly and gracious gentlemen, and dashing Griff Jordan, who made no secret of his admiration for her. But gradually, against the backdrop of Haitian jungle, where voodoo drums filled the night air and the crimson flowers of the flamboyante tree fell like drops of blood on the chateau terrace, Starr's suspicions began to stir. After all, how could she be certain that the motives of the others were as innocent as her own? Indeed, what guarantee did she have that these strangers were in fact her cousins?