When Gordo O’Connor answers the doorbell one night while he is
home alone with his sons, he encounters an angry man who shoots
him in the chest. Fortunately he escapes serious injury, but the
gunshot begins a chain of events that alters the course of his life
forever.
Gordo, his attorney wife, Ana, and their two young boys flee
Galveston Island. None of them realizes that they will never again
sleep in Pilot House, the graceful Victorian home that they love.
As they try to regain control of their lives, a beach house on the
island’s far West End becomes a temporary refuge. Gordo is
conscious of every curious sound, suspicious of strangers, and
reluctantly begins to carry his father’s sleek Beretta .380.
Meanwhile, the police are oddly uninterested in the case,
implying that Gordo may know more than he reveals about the
shooter and his motivation. Gordo and Ana realize they are on their
own. As they watch their once idyllic world come apart, each faces
sexual temptation.
Gordo moves his family to the Texas Hill Country, and even
that is not far enough away. Isle of Misfortune reaches a gripping
conclusion when the stalker confronts Gordo for the last time.
Geoffrey Leavenworth knows whereof he writes. In 1994 he was
shot by an unknown assailant who apparently had a fixation either
on Leavenworth or his family. The shooter was never caught, and
the family is cautious and vigilant to this day.
_________________________________________________________
GEOFFREY LEAVENWORTH is the author of Historic Galveston,
published in 1985, and more than five hundred magazine articles
on business, food, health care, the space program, and other
subjects. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Time,
Texas Monthly, and the Christian Science Monitor. This is his first
novel.
