Deadly Contest

Book excerpt: The Caribbean Islands, known for their crystal clear waters, eye-popping sunsets and friendly natives, are favored vacation spots. But mixed within these happy places are a few islands known more for their poverty and despair. Of these, the ugliest, most desperate country is Barrita, ruled with an iron hand by a tyrant named Jacque Massoult. In 1937, a poor Berritian family gives birth to a baby boy. A beautiful child, perfectly formed, but with one damning deformity his skin is light, almost white. His parents consider him an evil being, a devil, and want him to be sacrificed, but a voodoo priest decides to put the child's life to a test during a full moon ceremony. He survives, forcing his parents to keep him until he is old enough to take care of himself. The child, given the white man's name of Martin, grows up hated, not just by his parents, but by all who know him. A few years later, another child named Stefan Palente is born, this time to one of the wealthiest families on the island. His father, who is a descendant of the former white French Colonial rulers, controls the largest industry on the island, a petroleum reprocessing plant. When Stefan is ten years old, he develops polio, leaving him partially lame. As he grows older, the natural tendency of his family to spoil him and the comparative wealth of his family, contribute to making him a bit of a playboy, interested only in satisfying his desires. The sudden death of his older brother, Phillip, thrusts Stefan into the role of next in line to assume control of the company, a job he desperately does not want. Stefan's younger sister is Alicia, a stunningly beautiful child. At sixteen, she looks much older and is selected by the President of the country to represent Barrita (with a new birth certificate showing her age as eighteen) in the Miss Earth contest. She is very shy, however, and does not want to take part in the pageant. She turns to Stefan, who has always been her best friend and protector, to find a way out. The President-for-life and supreme ruler of the tiny nation, "Father" Jack Massoult, is anxious for a victory at the contest, hoping that it will bring tourists and additional income to the island. He does not tolerate failure, and can go to extremes to get his own way. The four of them become enmeshed in a life-or-death struggle that has dire consequences, not only for them, but for the entire nation of Barrita.