Last seen heading out of Ventura Harbor with a SCUBA group bound for the Channel Islands, Santa Monica High School Marine Biology teacher, Isabelle Abbott, has vanished. She finds herself prisoner in the dark bowels of an underground aquarium complex. Once used by the military for marine mammal research, dolphins are no longer denizens of the big tanks. Instead, a menagerie of freaky razor-toothed predators including Piscum Auratus, a genetically engineered gold shark the size of an SUV, swims in psychotic circles. To her horror, Isabelle discovers that she and a group of traumatized young women have been trafficked to become mermaids for an international sex tourism ring working out of Southern California. They are only days away from being raped by men willing to pay huge sums for the mermaid experience. Worst of all, to eliminate her as a witness, when the tourists have had their sick fun, more obscenity follows. Isabelle will be tossed to the ravenous monsters in a snuff finale. Tenacious news reporter Bea Middleton and savvy photographer Lucy Vega, team with Ventura Detective Macintosh Wu. Can they stop the insanity before Isabelle and the others become nothing more than blood in the water? -- Back cover.