Book detail

In the spring of 1943, through his Edison family connections, Tony Del Plato gets a surprising assignment when Paramount Pictures decides to make one of its Popular Science movie shorts about inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr. (a real-life Edison protégé). Filming will take place not only at Hammond's grandiose castle-home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but also aboard his yacht on a trip to the Caribbean. Tony's job: bodyguard to actress Marjorie Reynolds, who suggested the movie and will be featured in it.

Nearly six months since they last saw one another during a radio broadcast which also involved Hammond, Tony and Marjorie find that their chemistry is undiminished. During their trek, Tony reveals some of his mysterious background in a trio stories abou his tutoring by Thomas Edison, his solving of an actual New Jersey cold case from the 1880's, and his association with notorious New Jersey gangster Abner "Longy" Zwillman. But those stories aside, Tony and Marjorie also manage to become embroiled in a Caribbean murder.