Outskirts Press, INC.

Mitch Blaine, aviator extraordinaire, returns!

In this third much-awaited novel in the series, Mitch Blaine and his learned sidekick Beyer have returned to their isolated retreat on Apache Lake in the Arizona desert, where a young Mexican girl has been ruthlessly tossed out of a low-flying aircraft. After saving her life, they are drawn into a battle of retribution with the same gang of thugs who attempted to slay her. Severely wounded in the ensuing fray, Beyer has unilaterally determined that it is time to go home. Now the intrepid duo has decided to fly back to Australia in their vintage PBY flying boat, the Wayward Wind. They plan a fuel stop in Vanuatu in the South Pacific to visit some old friends at Havannah Harbor—a repair base for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet just prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea—on the island of Efate. Only thing is, it’s cyclone season down there, and one of the most devastating storms that part of the world has ever known is heading right toward Vanuatu. When Blaine and Beyer arrive at the exact moment that the cyclone is battering the islands, they inadvertently fly into one of the most bizarre adventures they have yet encountered—and literally right into history!

Peering through the windshield, I was shocked at what lay before us! A flotilla of warships lay at anchor in the middle of the harbor, riding out the storm. I counted a half dozen ships, consisting of what appeared to be three cruisers and three destroyers. But the thing that really startled me was that they did not have the sleek, rakish lines of modern navy vessels. Then, a moment later, I recognized one of the cruisers! And to say that I was flabbergasted by what I saw was the understatement of a lifetime! I had seen that ship’s outline, its twin stack and armament arrangement many times before in old, spotted black and white photographs taken with an ancient Kodak Box Brownie camera by my father during his tour aboard this ship. He had been a sailor aboard her in every theater of war in World War Two!