The Secret of Blue Scorpion Key — Malcom Massey

Nothing that has ever happened - no adventure, no danger, no villain - has prepared Martin Culver for what he will encounter on Blue Scorpion Key, where nothing is what it seems. Flying over coastal Cuba one moment, the next finds our heroes on the ground fighting for their lives.From mad scientists who are A.I. level intelligent, to research scientists who become their own evil experiments, to descendants of pirates with a clear disdain for gold, the unimaginable world found on Blue Scorpion Key evokes Carroll's chaotic Wonderland at best, and at worst, the darkest side of Neverland, swapping alligators for armies of weaponized arachnids. Even the ruthless pirate Captain Jose Gaspar would shudder to know what his hide-a-way has become.On the verge of their greatest treasure and artifact recovery ever, Martin and Sandra face an onslaught of ghostly ship passages, wandering treasure galleons, uncounted gold by the ton, bus-sized insectoids and nuclear-powered dead zones that bring them to the very edge of their sanity.Only then do Martin and Sandra encounter The Secret. Once that happens, even the Code of the Pyrate Brethren held in their very hands cannot protect them. Together they must draw on their deepest reserves and their highest skills to defeat the rising tide of fear that threatens their world and everything they have fought so hard to maintain. The Ninth Novel in The Martin Culver Series.