[Excerpt]

Sleepy Stuart, Florida is the setting for this bizarre tale of intrigue and deception that challenges human comprehension.

A television reporter and several friends are enjoying an afternoon outing on an island in the Intracoastal Waterway adjacent to West Palm Beach. A van traveling on the bridge above them slows to a crawl and suddenly the reporter and his friends go blind! When his vision returns the van is gone, several of his friends are kneeling on the ground praying while others reach for a beer and blame the event on a solar eclipse.

The television reporter calls Mack McCray and asks if Mack will meet with him so he can tell him about the episode. Mack cautiously agrees. During their meeting Mack could tell by the reporter's sincerity and the terrified look in his eyes that he believed what he was telling him. Mack suggests that he drop the story because it smacks of a shadowy element and foreign government involvement. The headstrong young reporter refuses and follows several leads that result in severe consequences.

Mack travels to Chicago to check out the probability of the reporter's story with a retired physicist. He traces a murky trail of government experiments in methods of non-lethal warfare and discovers government-sponsored research in overloading the optic nerve with microwave-transmitted electrical impulses that confuse the brain resulting in temporary blindness. Mack reluctantly gets pulled into the quagmire and comes face to face with the perpetrator of this bizarre experiment.

An expelled member of the Japanese yakuza and Jamaican bobsled team plays a major role in this bizarre tale. A retired physicist, who worked on top-secret government projects and dabbles in Egyptology, provides one link to solving the enigma. A shy librarian gets pulled into the sinister plot because the quirky physicist gave her some of his private papers to hold until five years after his death. A gold sphinx discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings provides the final key to solving the puzzle.

Intrigue , mystery, suspense and humor, plus a touch of Florida history, are expertly woven together. McElroy keeps the reader turning pages without revealing the conclusion until the last paragraph.