The Cape of the Arrows (Paperback)

RUTH DYER DYER, a teaching assistant to the renowned archaeologist Dr. Alan Prendergast, reluctantly accepts a summer assignment to accompany him to St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The expedition is a last-minute arrangement financed by an environmentalist group taking advantage of the fact that turmoil in the Middle East has cancelled the originally planned excavation. Ruth is needed because she was brought up in a tropical climate by missionary parents and is fluent in Spanish. A relatively insignificant dig becomes national news when recently buried bodies are discovered at the ancient site at The Cape of the Arrows. Prendergast's hidden past becomes public knowledge, cannibalism among ancient tribes a major interest, the inter-island drug trade and the government-sponsored underwater laboratory at Columbus Landing in Salt River are all front-page news. While her younger colleagues enjoy the local music and night life, Ruth discovers that her values are undergoing a profound change. Her engagement to a student at the Yale Divinity School is threatened by her attraction to an older, divorced man, the famous photographer Rolf Swartin. Despite her strict upbringing, Ruth finds she is capable of hiding the truth, sympathetic to local political intrigue and ambivalent about murder. Her future life, once so carefully planned and clear, now offers disturbing new options.