When Matthew Luedecke leaves his small town for the university, he's hoping for a new start and a more exciting life. He'll get more than he bargained for. Recruited by a shadowy group of Nicaraguan ex-pats, Matt soon discovers how sheltered and blinded most Americans are when it comes to the covert machinations of world powers and the intricacies and danger of international intrigue. From an innocent pool party to a bloody firefight along the Coco River in Nicaragua's dense jungles, Matt is about to find out that an "exciting" may not be all it's cracked up to be.

One Arm of the Octopus is a novelette, originally published in Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy.