A CURSED TREASURE FROM THE MISTS OF THE PAST In his first novel-length adventure, Aleister Gaspard must find the legendary Maltese Falcon, while somehow dodging the vengeance that both the voluptuous vixen Valencia de Karre and the vile (and violent) Gilligan Skokes wish to wreak on him. Complicating matters are the dark magic hidden inside the Falcon, a sinister power that could spell the end of the world - and the evil cult which seeks to obtain the Falcon's secret power. It's a mad scramble that leads Gaspard and his crew of fractious freebooters from the stinking hell-hold of a prison-ship's bilges to the top of an Aztec pyramid, where hordes of native warriors wait to perform their latest human sacrifice - and prowling horrors lurk within to claim their victims. It's a rollicking comedy adventure, pitting the Not-Quite-King of the Buccaneers against argumentative secret agents Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, an ancient cult that seeks the release of a primordial demon from its undersea tomb, a sea-captain with a vendetta against a certain white whale, the exiled Transmorvanian prince Vlad Tepid - and the mad Captain Jack Swallow, who is hiding quite a nasty curse of his own . . .