Dr. Malin Hatch is a medical researcher, MD from Harvard, yada yada yada. When he was a young boy, he and his brother took a trip to a piece of property belonging to his family called Ragged Island, off the Maine coast. The boys were investigating the site of a pirate treasure burial...a spot called the water pit, where Old Ned Ockham buried a fortune in pirate loot. The treasure site had been worked at fastidiously over a hundred years, with each expedition ending in bankruptcy or death. When the boys go to investigate, they find an entrance into the tunnel -- Malin's brother enters, and the next thing Malin knows, he is standing in his brother's blood, but there is no trace of his brother.

Fast forward with Mal as an adult. A Captain Gerard Neidelman, treasure hunter with an organization called Thalassa, convinces Malin that he has the means to dig up the treasure on Ragged Island. After some thought, Malin decides he'll give Thalassa permission to dig there. What Malin really wants is to find the body of his brother. So the expedition commences, and Malin is signed on as the expedition doctor. Soon bad luck & tragedy begins to befall the mission.

And I'll stop there. The story is very exciting, a definite page turner and a hell of a lot of fun. I recommend it for a solid day's reading when you want something fun yet suspenseful. A good escape yarn, if nothing else.