Under The Sand

In this latest installment of the Leslie Elliott mystery series, the tranquility of Anibonie Island (just off of Florida's Gulf Coast) is shattered by a carefully orchestrated and violent kidnapping plot. Well-heeled brothers Victor and Hugo Clerk are the targets of the criminals; a note demanding $200 million in ransom informs the police that the men will be buried alive until the money is paid. The kidnappers, who include an ex-soldier once convicted of murdering his commanding officer in Afghanistan, destroy the island's communication network and disable the bridge linking Anibonie to the mainland.

Unable to bring in reinforcements, a small and unlikely team of intrepid investigators find themselves in a race against time to rescue the kidnapped brothers from a horrible fate. Among them are public relations expert Leslie Elliott, who recently moved to the island to start a new career as a mystery writer, and her friend, Wes Avery, a newspaper reporter from the Midwest who gave up his big-city job and now writes for the island's paper. They are assisted by Alex Pendry a young, inexperienced sheriff's deputy; Ray Santiago, a fireman' and the fearless Gene Miller, whose day job is to reduce the island's increasingly destructive iguana population.

In this page-turning thriller, readers will be carried along, fully engaged as the twists and turns of the plot produce unexpected revelations.

Susan Hanafee is an award-winning former reporter for The Indianapolis Star. She headed corporate communications for IPALCO Enterprises and Cummins Inc. before becoming a mystery writer. She resides in Sarasota, Florida. Hanafee's blogs can be found on www.susanhanafee.com. Her previously published books include Red, Black and Global: The Transformation of Cummins (a corporate history); Rachael's Island Adventures (a collection of children's stories); Never Name an Iguana and Rutabagas for Ten (essays and observations on life); Leslie's Voice, a novel, in which her heroine Leslie Elliott is introduced, and the mystery sequels, Scavenger Tides, The End of His Journey, Deadly Winds, and Under the Sand.