Halcyon

Never scorn a woman
She tapped me on the crown of my head with the pistol barrel, just enough to hurt and to irritate my headache. "Listen lady," I said. "If you really are one of them sisters from whatever back then and if you have tracked me down for some sort of a sexual get-together...okay then, lady, we may be able to consider taking it up again at some point after where you lost your virginity?"

"This is not about me ever having sex with you again, you moron. This is all about revenge. You are my revenge, Fagundes. This first part is to have you remember me; you are to know who is taking this revenge on you. Now, are you ready for the rest? Are you listening, smart arse?"

In his wild youth, American-Australian born and Brazilian raised Reynaldo Fagundes made the terrible mistake of having sex with two sisters, thereby winning a foolish wager with another ship's officer. The girls' mother, a vengeful person possessed of a horrific temper and a talent for mendacity, frames Fagundes for a crime he did not commit, one that ends his promising career in the merchant navy and sends him to jail for six years.

After his release, Fagundes buys the Halcyon, an Amazon River boat that, like her new captain, has seen better days. Now a permanent drunk, Fagundes tramps the Amazon waterways, searching for cargo that no one else will carry. However, Fagundes' tormentors and persecutors are not finished with him yet as the vengeful mother, her two daughters, and a corrupt cop re-appear, intent on sending him to jail for life.

Halcyon takes the reader on a voyage of discovery through the heart of Brazil's Amazonia and to the uppermost source of the Amazon River, deep into the volcanic region of Ecuador. Along the way, Fagundes will face the darkness of his own heart, fall in love, and attempt to settle the score with the vengeful mother, Regina Almeida Amaro, for the last time. In the end, however, it is the angry volcano El Reventador that will have the final say of who will live and will die..