The Jade Head

by Patrick Grady

After getting sacked from his job, Bob Wayne gives in to his urge to escape to the tropics for what he hopes will be a Hemingway-esque adventure. Soon after arriving in Belize, he becomes involved with a colorful collection of local characters. Then, while touring the Mayan ruins, he learns about the famous jade Mayan statute of the Sun God, Kinich Ahau, the largest jade Mayan artifact ever recovered. After meeting a shady American businessman, Nick Devlin, and his beautiful Creole girlfriend, Bob gets caught up in a risky business venture at a jungle plantation, which sets his life on a new and unexpected course. This humorous and suspenseful story paints a vivid picture of Belize and its diverse and fascinating people. In addition to being pure entertainment, readers will learn about the diverse cultures of Belize: the Creoles, Mestizos, Garifunas, and, surprisingly, the Mennonites; and travel with the author to Belize City, Ambergris Cay, Cayo and Orange Walk, and the Mayan sites at Lamanai, Xunantunich and Altun Ha.

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

PATRICK GRADY is a retired economist living in Punta Gorda, Florida. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Toronto and an A.B. from the University of Illinois. Over a long career, he worked as a central banker, public servant, and economic consultant. To keep busy in Punta Gorda, he taught economics, for a while, at Florida Southwestern State College.

Patrick has written many articles and five books on economic and fiscal issues, including The Economic Consequences of Quebec Sovereignty(Fraser Institute,1991), Dividing the House: Preparing for a Canada without Quebec (Harper Collins Canada, 1995) with Alan Freeman, and Seattle and Beyond: The WTO Millennium Round (1999) with Katie Macmillan.

As a consultant, he has worked for governments and corporations across Canada, and for the World Bank, the IMF, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank, in more than 35 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.