Once, A. J. and Darlene Braswell had it all -- fortune, three beautiful children, power, bright futures. But then their golden son, Andy, was killed in a grotesque battle with a giant blue marlin, and in the ten years since his death, the Braswell family has crumbled -- Darlene ultimately giving in to suicidal depression, the family business nearly in ruins. But Morgan and Johnny Braswell are not about to let their father's obsession with the great fish that devastated their family ruin their lives any longer. They've got a plan. And after years of stealing ideas from the notebooks that Andy left behind, they've got a secret weapon that could restore MicroDyne's greatness -- or destroy it.Of less consequence are the people they'll have to kill to bring their plan to fruition, and murdering a nosy reporter is just a petty nuisance to be handled along the way. But when they kidnap Lawton Collins, a befuddled ex-cop who they believe has stolen the weapon from them, they attract the attention of a stranger whose name may be a mystery, but whose intentions are crystal clear.