Book excerpt: On May 8, 1902, Mount Pelée on the West Indies island of Martinique near the seaport town of Saint-Pierre erupted in a cloud of gas and fire in one of the most awesome and destructive pyrotechnic displays ever offered by nature. Four minutes later, thirty thousand citizens lay dead or dying and the town was engulfed in flames. Mother Nature was not entirely to blame for this disaster. In truth, the real culprits in this real-life story were the rather more deplorable traits found in human nature. Then, like now, if not for the dishonesty and corruption of officials who placed politics, greed, and racial intolerance above the welfare of the people, human injustice, loss of lives, and immeasurable suffering could have been avoided. The Last Moon remains 95 percent true to historical facts and personal testimonies. The main characters are either composites of real individuals who lived in Martinique prior to the eruption or actual people who influenced the turn of events. The Creole language, tidal waves, lava and mudflows, volcanic eruptions, foreign ships, deadly reptiles and insects, rich topography, and sequence of events portrayed in the novel are all genuine and based on fact.