Viper Island

Take three ordinary kids - well, to be frank, two ordinary kids and one a little outside normal, if you know what I mean. Put these three kids in a vacation home near a beautiful lake with an island, and throw in some boating on the lake and some model airplanes, and you have an idyllic picture, right? Well, you would have, if everything was what it seemed. It turned out that nothing was what it seemed . . . but the kids did not know that until too late. Viper Island follows privileged Amber and Casey Vane from the time when Mr. Courant throws them out of the county club, through the humiliating loss of their family's wealth, to their relocation at the Haven, their pokey one-time vacation home. Through it all, the enigmatic Charles Courant is never far away. Sometimes he is bad Mr. Courant, with his hooded, snake-like eyes. Sometimes, he is great guy Charlie Courant, with a wide smile and careless largesse. Is it really coincidence that he turns up at the island? That he owns it? And, how come hot-shot financial whizz Charles M. Courant has model airplanes flying around? Especially ones that can fly for miles with no engine and no fuel. When they open the wreck of one of those models, Amber, Casey and their friend Andrew find a plea for help from a man imprisoned on the island. But, by opening the model, by seeing its secret, they become targeted as people who know too much. Andrew, the "brains" of the trio, is kidnapped and imprisoned on the island himself. With their parents beyond reach, and the local police compromised, Casey and Amber mount a desperate rescue operation by themselves. Predictably, they get caught, and eventually find themselves trapped with Andrew in a burning house that Mr. Courant - good old Charlie! - intends should be their funeral pyre. Far below the house is the secret "Downstairs," and it is through this most unlikely escape route that the three protagonists make their way to freedom. On their way, they release Mr. Courant's key prisoner, the man whose work on artificial intelligence holds the key to the stupendous performance of the model airplanes . . . and the weapons they will soon carry.