Synopsis

A fishing guide and part-time investigator, Hannah Smith is a tall, strong Florida woman descended from many generations of tall, strong Florida women. But the problem before her now is much older even than that. And its consequences are lethal.

Five hundred years ago, Spanish conquistadors planted the first orange seeds in Florida, but now the billion-dollar industry is in trouble. The trees are dying, weakened by infestation and genetic manipulation, and the only solution might be somehow, somewhere to find sample of the original root stock.

No one is better equipped to traverse the swamps and murky backcountry of Florida than Hannah, but once word leaks out of her quest, the trouble begins. "There are people who will kill to find a direct descendant of those first seeds," she is warned—and it looks like those words may be all too prophetic.

That is, if the secrets she discovers in the Florida wild about a twenty-year-old murder don't kill her first.

Or the fifteen-foot-long Burmese python.

Chapter 1 Excerpt

I was enjoying the conversation with a man I used to date, a biologist named Marion Ford, until the subject swung from Florida oranges to a giant snake. He’d seen it crossing a bay south of the island where I grew up and still occasionally reside.

“How far south?”

“A ways. We were flying back from Key West.”

“That’s where you disappeared to?”

“I’ve been traveling,” he said, which was typical. “It was a Burmese python—twelve, maybe fifteen feet long. Too big for a boa. Hard to be sure of the size because it was swimming, but that’s not the point.”

“It is to me,” I said. “If you’re trying to scare me into moving closer to your lab, I’m flattered, but I’d prefer the particulars first. There are better ways than inventing snakes.”