Alien Coast

June 1981, Galveston Harbor. Historian Urban McLean, newly retired from the American Embassy in Bogota, takes his yacht Aluna on a dramatic speaking tour along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida. He's reenacting characters and incidents from an ill-fated Spanish expedition to La Florida in 1528, led by the mercurial Panfilo de Narvaez, a flawed character McLean portrays all too easily. Joining the tour: McLean's half-Colombian daughter on college vacation from California; an exiled Bolivian family friend; two federal agents under cover; a young Floridian fisherman, who shares McLean's fascination with Narvaez. All come to the tour with different agendas. But other events—past and present, near and far—entangle them in ways they never could have imagined. The consequences prove deadly. Along this historic coast, the seamarks of the lost Narvaez expedition are haunting reminders that disaster can stalk even the best-laid plans.