Taboo Means Death

A pilot stays friends with a woman he knew in college even after they go separate ways. When she suddenly stops writing letters, he flies to Samoa to find her. He learns she's really a princess who has to marry someone else. Things go wrong when he helps her escape the country, making her mother angry and upsetting the island's gods.

Mac Calder learns from his intended Noelani that she can’t wed him because she must marry another pure-blood Samoan. Unable to persuade her to reject the island’s “ethnic purity,” he appeals to her mother who tells him they will go against the gods if they marry. Still resolved to make Noelani his bride, he charters a small plane and they make their escape. But when they encounter a thunderstorm and are unable to establish ground control, Noelani begins to fear the curse of the gods—death.

Several years after they parted ways, a pilot still keeps in touch with an old college flame. When her letters stop abruptly, he travels to Samoa and discovers that she is actually a princess and is set to marry another. The pair stumble into trouble when he smuggles her out of the country, much to the displeasure of her mother, and the island's deities.