A wedding on Martha’s Vineyard is spoiled by the death of the groom.
Serena Jones (Another Day, Another Dali, 2016, etc.) takes a break from her job with the FBI’s Art Crime Team to attend her Uncle Jack’s nuptials. But when she and her parents get off the ferry from Woods Hole, they’re hit with the disturbing news that Jack Hill, not actually a blood relative but one of Serena’s dad’s oldest friends, was found dead at the base of a cliff in Menemsha Hills, one of his favorite hiking spots. The police see his death as accidental, but Serena thinks it’s odd that he would fall off a trail he’s walked hundreds of times. Her first thought is to console Jack’s distraught bride-to-be, Marianne Delmar. Then there’s Ashley, Jack’s biological niece, who’s reeling from both her uncle’s death and the disappearance of her brother, Ben. Coincidences pile up, convincing Serena there’s more to Jack’s death than the police will acknowledge. She’s soon joined in her investigation by her Art Crime Team boss, Tanner, summoned by Serena’s mom to play knight-errant. Three quickly becomes a crowd when Nate, superintendent of Serena’s apartment complex back in St. Louis, flies out to make sure nothing bad happens to his favorite tenant.
Quicker than a nor’easter hitting a Cape Cod beachfront, romance swamps detection here, leaving the mystery buried deeper than a Mayan polychrome vase.