Transfer Day: A Novel

During the Great War in 1916, Abigail Maduro's parents are killed in a train accident along the Panama Canal. Orphaned and alone, she is sent to St. Thomas, an island in the Danish West Indies, to live with a bad-tempered aunt and her household of eccentric servants. To escape her aunt's overbearing protectiveness, Abby explores the lively town of Charlotte Amalie where she meets some of her more colorful characters like Judge Neergaard, a sympathetic Danish Judge, and Queen Coziah, the leader of the coal carriers. Despite the island's veneer of tranquility, St. Thomas is a hotbed of German spies and saboteurs who use their Hamburg-America Line steamers to aid the Kaiser's war effort. When a mysterious stranger suddenly appears in town, Abigail is drawn into the conflict. In the scholarly Erich Seibold, she finds the friendship she has been craving, even after she learns that Erich is really a deserter from a German U-boat. But their idyllic interlude comes to a crashing halt when the island's German consul discovers Erich's identity and blackmails him into committing sabotage and murder. After a melee involving the Danish governor meant to sabotage the transfer of the islands to the U.S., Erich is thrown into prison and Abigail must choose between her safety and Erich's life. Action and adventure abound in this colorful historical novel that brings to life a fading West Indian sugar colony in the last days of Danish rule.