by Dick Francis

BBC meteorologist and Ph.D. physicist Perry Stuart's life is thrown for a loop when he accompanies his thrill-seeking friend Kris Ironside on a dangerous flight through a category-3 hurricane over the Cayman Islands. When the flight maroons on tiny Trox Island, Perry and Kris fervently explore the habitat as payment to Robin Darcy, an American mushroom grower who loaned them the plane. Mystery abounds in the form of coded figures and locked safes during their stay on the island. But the real adventure begins upon their return to civilization, when Perry comes down with a strange illness possibly linked to a mysterious malady that overcame a prize filly back in England.