When a rich, white American yachtsman is indicted for murder of a local black launch-tender in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent a conservative news commentator stirs up a media circus by championing the yachtsman and criticizing the weakness of the case with tactics that demean the local prosecutor.

Facing worldwide embarrassment and condemnation for indicting the yachtsman without substantive evidence, the prosecutor engages an investigator to bolster his charge. That man, a retired New York City detective had been cruising the archipelago in his refurbished 32-foot sailboat.

Born in the Bronx of Puerto Rican parents the 51-year-old ex-cop pugnaciously probes every avenue relative to the case in his determination to clear the case and prove he deserves accolades the deputy commissioners of the NYPD denied him. Not withstanding the lack of physical evidence, he utilizes street smarts along with natural intelligence and twenty-eight years of cop experience to connect the killing to diamond smuggling.

But unable to unequivocally connect the yachtsman to the suspected diamond smugglers, the detective worries that he railroads an innocent fellow American. On the other hand, having suffered as the victim of bigotry for much of his life, as well as treated as an inferior by the affluent and influential, he is tempted to partake of the sweet taste of payback.

Steadily increasing antagonism developing between the cocky ex-cop and the stuffy prosecutor (steeped in pedantic English tradition) complicates working arrangements. But that doesn't deter the ex-cop, whose unwavering investigation leads to rooting out a shrewd but cold-hearted Armenian and his cohorts: a robust Jamaican and a shifty Frenchman.

Along the way the ex-cop encounters a foxy local gal who lights all of his fi res. But all too often her self-suffi ciency and individualism, as well as oft-times cankerous attitude, culminates in a rocky, while torrid, relationship.