The Wreckers of Key West

About this book:

Thirteen-year-old Toby Vance has saltwater in his veins and the Florida Reef in his bones. On Key West, a shipwreck isn't a tragedy—it's a livelihood, a lottery, and a battle waged between honest salvors and men like Gideon Cross, who sails the black-hulled *Iron Witch* with a crew of Chesapeake toughs and a reputation for making his own luck. When the barometer drops and the cry of "Wreck ashore!" shatters the night, Toby races alongside his uncle aboard the *Sea Cat*, where the first master to plant a boot on a stranded deck claims the salvage—and the fortune that comes with it.

But the reef gives up more than timber and cargo. A salt-stained map hints at a lost galleon's gold. A rival's warning whispers of sabotage in the sound. And as a hurricane bears down on the Keys, Toby finds himself caught between the Admiralty court's rigid law and the reef's brutal code: save the ship, split the spoils, survive the storm. From moonlit salvage runs to a courtroom showdown where a captain's ransom hangs in the balance, every tide brings a new test of courage and conscience.

Rich with the smell of pine tar and whale oil, the roar of breakers on Carysfort Reef, and the morally complex world of 1850s wrecking, *The Wreckers of Key West* is a seafaring adventure where the line between rescue and piracy shifts with the current—and a boy becomes a master of the Keys one wreck at a time.