Sean O'Brien

After 40 years in San Quentin, Luke Palmer leaves with a state-issued suit, $100 dollars to buy a bus ticket, and a map that will lead to a promise and into the heart of a dark forest. College graduate student Molly Monroe is about to release rare butterflies not far from where the FBI used 4,000 bullets in a shootout to kill Ma Barker and one of her gangster sons in 1935. Molly snaps a picture that will frame something she never sees coming.

In Mermaid, the line between make-believe and murder evaporates when the body of a young woman in a mermaid tail washes ashore on a Florida beach. Police think her death is an accident, maybe connected to a big-budget movie filming in the area. After another girl, this one working as a mermaid at a theme park, drowns, Sean O'Brien becomes involved because the daughter of his close friend may be the next victim, and O'Brien knows there are no coincidences or illusions when it comes to murder. 

In the world of maritime treasure hunting, former college professor Walt Baker is about to hit the lottery. More than 300 years ago, the legendary Spanish galleon Santa Ramona sank in a hurricane somewhere off the coast of Florida. The ship was carrying gold, silver, jewels, and artifacts worth an estimated $10 billion in today’s dollars. With $10 billion at stake, the best criminal minds will scheme to take what’s not theirs. 

When Sean O'Brien watches a girl darting through traffic to pick up money she dropped, he stops to help. The next time he sees her face it's during a TV newscast. She's vanished. As the case grows cold, Sean can't forget the touching story she shared with him. To find her, he must enter the dark web, infiltrate a global criminal ring, and outwit one of the sharpest and most inhuman minds he's ever faced in a battle where the girl's life is reduced to a matter of days.