A SHOOT ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD

Yet another love letter to Martha’s Vineyard via this ninth adventure for resident J.W. Jackson—ex-Boston cop, fisherman, cook, husband of beautiful nurse Zee, sometime nanny to new son Joshua (A Deadly Vineyard Holiday, 1997, etc.). J.W. has long been antagonistic to beach-closing environmentalists led by blue-blooded biologist Lawrence Ingalls’so, naturally, when J.W. finds Ingalls shot to death on the beach just days after they—d come to blows, he finds himself the prime suspect, even getting shot at by Ingalls’s assistant Beth Harper. Eventually off the hook, J.W. is hired as local guide by handsome Californian Drew Mondry, who’s scouting locations for a Hollywood movie to be made on the island. Mondry’s already tagged the gorgeous Zee for a minor role, increasing J.W.’s baby-tending chores as he goes about the business of finding Ingalls’s killer. His attempts to explore Ingalls’s Chilmark residence, though, are thwarted by housekeeper Connie Beruba, who lives in a shack nearby with a brood of children and her abusive, recently vanished husband, Moonbeam. It takes all of J.W.’s usual information sources, and more, to uncover the flaw in Ingalls’s seemingly blameless life and character—a flaw that pinpoints the murderer. Long on scenery, fishing lore, picturesque local characters, and J.W.’s inner thoughts, now augmented by his archly whimsical one-sided conversations with three-month-old Joshua. Short on excitement and suspense. A genial snooze.