A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard: A Martha's Vineyard Mystery Hardcover - 1998

From the publisher

The bluefish are in early. It's only August, and they should still be frolicking in the waters of Nova Scotia, but for some unknown reason they've already made the trip south to Martha's Vineyard.

J. W. Jackson has much to be thankful for this particular August: the early arrival of bluefish, certainly, but also beautiful wife Zee and an addition to their family, three-month-old Joshua, who screams loudly and looks like a cross between Edward G. Robinson and Winston Churchill.

Life is good, except for the intrusion of several outsiders from "America." First comes Drew Mondry, in from California to scout for locations for the upcoming Hollywood epic "The Treasure Hunters". Mondry likes what he sees, and he especially likes Zee. She may be a happily married new mother but she's also a devastatingly beautiful woman who might do well on the large screen. But is it Zee's potential as an actress or her other attributes that really interests Mondry? J.W. tries not to play the jealous husband role, but it's a part that comes all-too-naturally.

Perhaps it's just as well that a distraction arrives in the person of one Lawrence Ingalls, a biologist for the State Department of Environmental Protection. J.W. and Ingalls disagree on just about everything: the environment, the Vineyard, and the people who live there.

It's three summers now since Ingalls launched the Plover Wars, banning off-road vehicles from one of J.W.'s favorite fishing beaches so that some endangered birds could nest. Tempers have flared. Talk has escalated into violence. J.W.'s in the middle of it all.

J.W. is passionate for his sport and for his family, but would he go so far as to commit a homicide to defend them? Some think the answer is yes, if the circumstances were right. When a murder occurs, J.W. is a natural suspect. To save himself, to protect the future of his vulnerable young son, he must help to find the killer-- and the sooner the better so he can get back to his fishing, his cooking (three recipes are included), and his afternoon drinks on the little balcony that overlooks some of the most beautiful beaches on earth.

Warm, witty, resplendent with the exquisite ambiance of Martha's Vineyard, "A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard" further confirms author Philip R. Craig as a modern master of mystery.