Sure, tropical breezes and icy mai tais are lovely. But if you’re a writer of thrillers, mysteries or gothic romance, there are few settings more delightfully and deeply unsettling than an island.

The wild and remote Farallon Islands off the Marin coast offer daily proof of nature’s ebbs and flows. The changes, unseen by most, are dramatic. California sea lions have moved here from southern ...

For years, I had dreamt of visiting the Farallon Islands, a series of sharp rocky spires only 25 miles off the San Francisco coast. Mysterious and fascinating, they are often hidden by a dense curtain ...

The Farallon Islands have always had proverbial dark clouds hanging over them. The rocky outcrops 28 miles west of San Francisco have long held ominous nicknames, including “Islands of the Dead” and ...