The Flame of Youth
Summary
A pampered heir, bronzed by polo fields and martini lunches, is flung from a yacht into a brine-soaked purgatory where opals glitter like the eyes of sleepless gods. Jimmy Gordon—equal parts silk-scarf frivolity and latent ferocity—surfaces on a volcanic scab off Baja, his birthright mine hollowed out by a triad of vultures: a velvet-gloved stepfather, a mestizo thug who whistles funeral hymns, and a bean-counter with ink-stained talons. The island itself exhales rot; mangroves twist into gallows silhouettes, and moonlight drips mercury onto corrugated shacks. In this limbo the heir meets Nadine, a sable-haired Cassandra wrapped in salt-stiffened linen, whose gaze already sees the island sinking back into the sea. Together with a limping foreman who still carries a Union Pacific watch, they stalk the jungle’s cathedral darkness, machetes flashing like apostate crucifixes until greed is dragged shackled into the surf. When the yacht reappears—white as absolution—Jimmy no longer needs it; he has traded cufflinks for coral scars and inherited a new continent spelled in a woman’s name.
Synopsis
James Gordon, Sr., owner of the Gordon syndicate, dispatches his roughneck son Jimmy to investigate why production has fallen off in his opal mine on an island off the coast of lower California. After an argument with his fiancé, socialite Lucy Andrews, Jimmy leaves for the island where he is met by Juan, McCool's servant who, along with Jasper Sneedham, has been cheating the company. On the launch, Juan tries to eliminate Jimmy by hitting him over the head, but escapes and swims to shore where he is rescued by Sneedham's stepdaughter Nadine. Nadine takes Jimmy to the hut of mine foreman Fred Haimer, the only honest man on the island. When Nadine overhears her stepfather's plans to take his ill gained fortune and flee, Jimmy and Haimer team up to defeat Juan, Sneedham and McCool. After a number of grueling skirmishes, Jimmy, Haimer and Nadine escape to the mainland where they notify the police who return to the island and arrest the gang. Jimmy then introduces Nadine to his father and is thrilled to learn that Lucy has married a nobleman, thus freeing Jimmy to marry Nadine.
