A Thief in Paradise: Years of failure and bad luck have made Maurice Blake a beachcomber on an island in the Samoas, earning a precarious living by diving for pearls with Philip Jardine, the disinherited son of a San Francisco millionaire. When Philip is killed by a shark, his half caste common-law wife, Rosa, informs Maurice that Philip had been forgiven by his father, and she persuades him to assume Philip's identity and return to the States