A James Bond-type techno-thriller reminiscent of the old Humphrey Bogart hero in Key Largo, this has aspirations to be a modern Francis Drake adventure, with pillage and treasure spilling off the page, writes Jan Lee.

The FBI contrives to set two friends against each other -- Thorn, an attractive maverick with the soft heart, who barely scrapes a living making fishing flies, and Sugarman, ex-law informer.

Both find themselves caught up in the machinations of two orphaned siblings.

The dark-skinned Anne Bonny, named after the greatest pirate of the Caribbean, has a brief hot affair with Thorn before she is swept away by the gorgeous Daniel, the greatest pirate alive. Her brother, the mean Vic Joy, cruises around his hugely lucrative criminal businesses and will do anything to get his hands on Thorn's rundown but desirable property.

Brother and sister have escaped from the horror of their parents' brutal murder to make a new life in Florida. They are both interested in all things piratical, a legacy from their obsessed and crazy mother.

The underlying theme is the notion that "everything is a trade-off". For Anne, the glue that holds the world together is the positive and negative charge, the good and evil in her, and the love and hate between herself and her brother. The secret code, which only she holds, is based on the binary power of the computer.

Off the Chart has all the ingredients of a James Lee Burke but without the compassion, wit and the waywardness of Burke's Dave Robicheaux. Thorn remains a fraction out of focus and the writing is not quite as crisp as Burke's.

Nonetheless, the novel is wonderfully evocative of Florida, the oceans and the jungle. It is a page-turner that would make a great film.