Chance is a bartender from Chicago now plying his trade at Oliver’s, a seafood restaurant in Key Largo, Florida, and who in his spare time loves to take wildlife pictures. John is an oyster shucker in the same restaurant and during his off-hours is a hobbyist and tinkerer with a U.S. Navy background. Together, they outwit the military and federal government with the help of five Vietnam Veterans called the Freak Beasts, three chimpanzees, and a beautiful veterinarian with martial arts talent. Along for the adventure are four millionairesses known as the Maserati Girls, a monkey named Boris who’s trying to make time with Shelby, a cockatoo in charge of everything that is Oliver’s, symbolically speaking, and a 15-foot salt-water crocodile that has a crush on a submersible owned by one of the Freaks, a sub which might have something to do with the strategy against the feds and military. The excitement: There are three UFOs, and they are identical, glowing blue at night, sending out chutes of light that drop from each, among other special talents. The federal government wants what isn’t theirs, because if it is something they should probably already have made or invented, and usually in conjunction with the military, and they’ll attempt to capture them if they’re actually from Mars, and perhaps pay for them if they’re some hobbyist’s toys — big toys at 300 feet each. If they’re Martians, they might have ray guns and atomic blasters. If they’re a tinkerer’s finest, well, O.K., pay for them. The feds, along with the military, keep track of their own, and the Freaks and John have their military backgrounds, along with the additional hush-hush of federal background, and the Maserati Girls, at least two of them, are military brats and top-flight business women, and some of both the Beasts and Girls have possible business ties with the feds and the military, and adventure and espionage are both set on their ears and rears and flipped upside down in this novel. Remember: It’s the Keys … and Shelby Runs The Joint.
