Boris Sartorev, an American diplomat involved in sensitive Middle Eastern peace talks, finds out at his cost that an eclectic group of friends formed in his wild past hold both the key to the mystery and the winning hand. Despite the clarity of diplomatic vision being blurred by remembrances of sexual liaisons, shared kicks, and children born, it is soon clear to Boris that he is somehow connected to the Poker Club, and therefore, frighteningly, to their Hitzballah roots.

Think I would never have met Dawn, had it not been for that blessed fl ashy footwear... The year is 2035 when these events are told by one who lived through them, a computer fashion-graphics expert and inventor of a three-way game revolutionizing chess. This is fi rst and foremost the story of a portentous encounter - marvelous and ominous - of a man in the prime of his life, with an enigmatic young lady, hence united to live a growing passion. - It is the tale of a story within the story, in which Dawn is treating her young audience to a new Wonderland episode entitled Alice's Journey Through the Sea of Time. - It is also the story of a consequential natural catastrophe, and the premeditated explosion of a passenger plane, complicating their lives. - It is the story of sunny days and the couple's osmosis giving life to Amber. - And it is fi nally the story of childhood happiness sombered by Amber's disappearance, and perilous years of futile, although CIA-assisted, global quest to retrieve the child taken from them by a deranged female reemerging from Dawn's past and befalling the couple unawares. - Both women outlived 'A Thousand Fathoms Under the Skin', the preceding erotic-suspense novel by the same author. In spite of the story's uncouth and breathtaking conclusion, it leaves the reader with a feeling of interminate suspense...

Eleven interlinked stories tell the tale of a boy coming of age in Kailua-Kona, a Hawaiian fishing village. Sonny Mendoza is a little different from the rest of the men in his family. Salisbury explores characters like Aunty Pearl, a full-blooded Hawaiian as regal as the queens of old; cool Jack, from L.A., who starts a gang and dares Sonny to be brave enough, cruel enough, to join; mysterious Melanie, who steals his heart; and Deeps, the shark hunter. But the most memorable character is the sea itself: inviting, unpredictable, deadly. Mendoza men are brave men, but Sonny's courage is of a different kind. Why can't he love and trust the water as the men of his family are meant to do?