First Light
The First Ever Brady Coyne / J. W. Jackson Mystery
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Discover the first Brady Coyne and J.W. Jackson mystery with this compelling novel following two old friends who suspect that there’s a dangerous killer on the loose on the picturesque island of Martha’s Vineyard.
As summer winds down on Martha’s Vineyard, J.W. Jackson is looking forward to getting in some fishing in the annual striped bass and bluefish derby with his good friend Brady Coyne. A Boston lawyer, Brady is on the island to help the elderly Sarah Fairchild write her will. J.W. has a little business, too, having agreed to assist in the search for a missing woman who was last seen on the island a year ago.
For Brady and J.W., it’s law and detecting during the day and fishing to their hearts content by night. But things take a drastic turn when another woman goes missing and Brady discovers that there are more than a few people on the island who desperately crave Sarah’s vast estate. The two friends begin to suspect that there’s a killer behind the missing women but they have no idea that their own lives are in danger.
By turns charming and suspenseful, contemporary and evocative, First Light could only have been imagined in the collective mind of two superb authors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two veteran writers who know Martha's Vineyard well bring together Boston lawyer Brady Coyne and former cop J.W. Jackson in a slow-paced but ultimately satisfying crime drama set on the island after the summer season has ended. When tough businessman Jack Bannerman's wife goes missing, he hires private detective Jackson to find her. A parallel missing person's case develops when Coyne, Jackson's buddy, arrives for a fishing derby, only to see his elderly client Sarah Fairchild's private nurse vanish mysteriously in the midst of a nasty dispute over the future of ailing Mrs. Fairchild's sizable beachfront property. Conflicts erupt as family members fight among themselves and developers clash with environmentalists, all over whether to have a golf club or wildlife preserve. When he finally speaks with the bumbling local police, Jackson has already noticed that attractive women, all blonde and in their forties, have been disappearing for years on the island. Slashed tires with a warning note and quotations from Hamlet become important clues that eventually lead the pair of sleuths to a culprit whose guilt has been amply foreshadowed. The first-person narration that alternates between the two heroes for 26 chapters would have benefited from some variety, while the long descriptions of surf casting at morning's "first light" will appeal mostly to those who enjoy that sport. Yet we do get an intriguing and evocative picture of this high-profile vacation spot (whose presidential visits are noted in the text) in the off-season.
