Caribbean Island Adventure

A lifelong friend finds something deep in the Everglades that is so very odd, that when he calls Jesse McDermitt, at first the semi-retired former special operator is in total disbelief. But he is also very intrigued, and the duo set out on another adventure reminiscent of their childhood days. But their youthful quest had been all about fun and make-believe. This one was real, waiting nearly a century to be discovered.

The Virgin Islands: Exploring Adventure, Wellness, and Natural Wonders in the Virgin Islands your ultimate guide to experiencing the breathtaking beauty and diverse offerings of this Caribbean paradise.

Jesse McDermitt has been grieving the loss of a loved one to terrorists. He’s been holed up on his secluded island home for months, numbing his mind and body with endless, mundane tasks. But he has a plan for vengeance. A friend approaches Jesse seeking help for her dad who's been pressured into running drugs for a dangerous Cuban smuggler. When Jesse learns that the smuggler is also an arms merchant for Hezbollah, the terrorist organization responsible for the death of someone close, he once again looks to settle the score.

After a terrible defeat in Key West, where the subject of Jesse McDermitt’s identity fraud investigation gets away, and which almost costs him dearly, Jesse returns home to his island in the Content Keys, determined to keep those he loves safe from harm. He makes plans to fly his family and friends to the Leeward Islands for a very special occasion, unaware of events taking place on one small uninhabited island located a short distance from his destination—events that will suck him right back into the fray, as a past nemesis rears their head.

Unbeknownst to Jesse, an environmentally conscious woman from his past has stumbled onto a drug manufacturing cartel in Virginia while working on a pollution mitigation problem. The cartel responds by sending someone to kill people Jesse cares for. A contract killer stalks the woman all the way to Miami, leaving bodies in his wake. With the help of an old flame in the FBI, Jesse goes to the snow-covered Appalachians to get to the root of the trouble: an unscrupulous prosecutor and dirty sheriff, who are producing LSD on an unbelievable scale.

Jesse McDermitt is finally ready to retire. But life has other plans. While diving on a remote reef deep in the backcountry of the Florida Keys with his wife, son and two friends, he discovers of all things, a car. Not just any car, but a 1928 Duesenberg Model J, the most powerful and stylish automobile of its time. The car was once owned by a Saudi prince who was attempting to develop Johnston Key in the heart of Turkey Basin before Henry Flagler even finished the rail line to Key West. But that’s not all Jesse discovers and what he finds next will make him the target of one of his own.

Jesse McDermitt lives alone on an isolated island in the Florida Keys where he runs a charter fishing business. Retired from the Marine Corps for six years, he wants nothing more than to relax, fish, dive and enjoy the laid back lifestyle of the islands. Russ, his former Platoon Sergeant and old friend, dies unexpectedly in a mysterious scuba diving accident and Jesse becomes suspicious.

Danger lurks in the sleepy little town of Marathon, in the middle of the Florida Keys, as well as in the swamps of the Everglades. But danger doesn't expect to run into a man like Jesse. A man who will not only respond swiftly in facing it, but with a vengeance unexpected.

Things in the Middle Florida Keys aren’t as idyllic as they seem. If one looks closely, there’s a layer of dirt just below the surface. The butt-ugly kind of dirt that’s hard to get off. Things move slowly in the Keys—locals call it island time—but there are some for whom it seems that time is at a standstill; whose clocks revolve only around the tides, fish migrations, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon.

Jesse McDermitt is back, just as he promised. This time, he is thrust into the heart of the Florida Panhandle's Tate's Hell State Forest, where the tranquil surroundings belie a dangerous secret—a network of clandestine meth labs hidden against the backdrop of the Forgotten Coast’s natural beauty. Jesse, a retired Marine turned charter boat captain, has brought his family to Apalachicola “for the oysters.” But being who he is, the leisurely cruise soon spins into a gripping quest to unravel the truth behind the illicit operations threatening the region.

Jesse McDermitt has returned to the Florida Keys. But things in the islands are different now. The locals are worried, but nobody can explain why. A sense of foreboding hangs in the humid July air. One of the locals, an investment banker, is waiting tables at the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill. He seems a shell of the man he used to be—a hollow man whose fortune and wife are gone. Something very sinister is going on—Jesse smells it. He’s usually very good at rooting out the source of a problem, but is stumped this time.

On Grassy Key, things aren’t as idyllic as they seem. The quiet, sleepy community has been awakened. A young woman with strong ties to the community is missing. A local craftsman, the last person to see the girl, is questioned and released. The girl’s friends are interviewed. Nobody knows what happened to Cobie, except that she left for work one day and didn’t arrive. The only lead is the girl’s car, parked where she worked. But it provides no clues, and nobody saw anything. Days go by. Then weeks. The case grows cold.

A Spanish treasure ship is driven by a hurricane onto the rocky shoreline of Elbow Cay in September of 1566. Few of the crew survive, but they manage to salvage most of the treasure and bury it on the island, leaving a clue to its location in a chest placed in the boughs of a young mangrove tree. Four hundred forty years later, Jesse McDermitt and his friends solve the riddle that was hidden inside a chest found encased in the now-ancient mangrove.

In this fourth installment of the Jesse McDermitt series, Jesse faces an antagonist unlike any he's faced before, post-traumatic stress. A friend's son, who was dishonorably discharged from the Corps, is suffering from nightmares, brought on by the incident that was the catalyst for his discharge. With Jesse's help he learns to cope with his demons and gets his discharge overturned, so that he may once again serve the country he loves.

In this fourth installment of the Jesse McDermitt series, Jesse faces an antagonist unlike any he's faced before, post-traumatic stress. A friend's son, who was dishonorably discharged from the Corps, is suffering from nightmares, brought on by the incident that was the catalyst for his discharge. With Jesse's help he learns to cope with his demons and gets his discharge overturned, so that he may once again serve the country he loves.

When a group of strangers purchase land on Tortola and Norman Island to set up a commune, the locals simply write them off as an odd sort - until one of their bloated bodies washes up on the shore of a nearby resort island. As luck would have it, Jesse McDermitt is visiting a friend on Norman Island after tracking a terrorist submarine from the Windward Islands. The sub was destroyed by locals on the Dutch island of Saba, so Jesse had nothing much else to do. What he wasn’t looking for was a murderous cult at the center of a drug manufacturing and distribution ring.

On a kayak outing with friends, Jesse's daughter finds and rescues a manatee suffering from respiratory problems. The red tide has returned, and fish are dying by the thousands, along with dolphins, manatees, and sea birds. The algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but this time it's much worse. Theories abound; it's something left over from the previous spring's coronavirus outbreak, it's caused by pollution, someone is intentionally creating a super-algae....But there's something far more sinister at work, and it's up to Jesse to find out what it is and put a stop to it.

The quiet and solitude found in the backcountry and wetlands of south Florida has been shattered. Someone is using explosives to fish the ecologically fragile patch reefs in the shallow waters of Florida Bay, north of the Keys. Retired Marine Jesse McDermitt doesn't like explosions in his backyard. Knowing his penchant for inserting himself in matters best left to the authorities, his friends withhold information from him about the destruction to the delicate, living corals. Jesse doesn't much like this, either.

Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Few people know this as well as Jesse McDermitt, retired Marine and former government operative. In the aftermath of an intense mission in coastal Mexico, Jesse wants nothing more than to get back to his boat; to just sail away and forget all about the firefight and his warrior past. Jesse is forced to don the warrior’s mask once again. This time to catch a ghoulish killer who is stalking the villages and jungles outside Belize City.

Paradise has a price. For Jesse McDermitt, that price is his moral compass and a bullet. The retired Marine and charter skipper takes on a passenger in Nassau, a young woman who is a breath of fresh air. She introduces him to the laid-back cruising crowd on an idyllic small cay in the Berry Islands. Jesse takes to the relaxing lifestyle like a fish to water. Living each day on its own terms is a new experience for Jesse, but it doesn't last long. Trouble always seems to find him.