Bill Bolton—flying Midshipman

The sky is trying to kill them, and that's just the beginning. When midshipman Bill Bolton takes the controls of his father's seaplane over the Florida coast, he discovers that surviving a Category 4 hurricane is only the warm-up act. Crash landing in the Bay of Florida should be the end of their troubles, but the shore brings worse: armed men, capture, and a one-way ticket to a lawless island where criminals run things and escape seems impossible. Bill Bolton is fifteen years old, trapped in a nightmare of forced labor and sinister plots, and the only thing between him and oblivion is his nerve and his father's desperate plan. Written in the early days of aviation when seaplanes were miraculous and terrifying, this is pure boys' adventure fiction: fast, pulpy, and utterly unapologetic about its conviction that courage is the only currency that matters.