The Off-Islander

July 15, 2019
New England police officer Colt's first novel is a boozy pipe dream of a private eye's search for a long-missing father during a period the narrator guilelessly describes as "a couple of years into [Reagan's] first term." Geoffrey Swift, scion of the San Francisco Swift Aeronautical juggernaut, has a serious shot at becoming the first Republican senator from the Bay Area in years. So naturally Deborah Swift doesn't want anything to stand in her husband's gilded way. A serious potential obstacle is her father, Charles Edgar Hammond, a Korean War vet who stepped out for a pack of cigarettes while Deborah was still a child and never came back. Since the Army had Hammond's fingerprints on file, it's not likely that he died unidentified, but it's impossible to say what scandals may be lurking beneath his disappearance. Deborah's already hired the Pinkerton agency to investigate his last known whereabouts on Cape Cod, but the locals, true to New England form, have been standoffish toward the agency operatives, who've generated reams of paperwork but precious few leads. So Deborah asks Harvard-educated Boston attorney Danny Sullivan to recommend somebody local and flies Danny's best friend, Andy Roark, from coast to coast for a brief one-on-one and an infusion of cash. Back in Massachusetts, Andy zeroes in on Hyannis, where several veterans' benefits checks were sent to Hammond in 1968, and Nantucket, where his trail seems to lead. Throughout it all, Colt conscientiously supplies the obligatory complications of the hard-boiled formula--sexual come-ons, gunplay, mob figures, betrayals--but in slow motion. It's no wonder that Andy muses to his old friend: "This is a puzzle, almost a mystery." Yep, almost. Not much incident but lots of attitude.

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August 5, 2019
Boston PI Andy Roark, the hero of Colt’s entertaining debut and series launch, came back from Vietnam with serious PTSD and a simple lesson: you just had to kill the people who were trying to kill you. Decades later, he sits in his office, reading Raymond Chandler and doing routine, minimally interesting investigations. Then his friend Danny Sullivan, a mobbed-up lawyer, puts him on the case of tracking down Charles Hammond, the long-skipped father of a wealthy, scheming beauty, Deborah Swift, who wants to make sure that the missing man had no secrets that would hurt her husband’s accelerating political career. By skill and intuition, Andy follows the trail from Cape Cod to Nantucket, where an apparently guileless and harmless old hippy might be Hammond. Or not. But Andy isn’t the only one looking for Hammond. Like Philip Marlowe—or Robert Parker’s Spenser—Andy has a sharp eye for telling detail and male haberdashery. The resulting tale may not be stunningly original, but those who enjoy newish reworkings of classic PI tropes will be satisfied. Agent: Cynthia Manson, Cynthia Manson Literary.

October 1, 2019

In Boston, 1982, Andy Roark knows just enough about being a private investigator to get into trouble. A Vietnam vet, he still suffers from nightmares that destroyed his last relationship. He became a cop but quit to become a PI, picking up books by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett to learn how a PI operated. His lawyer friend from Southie, Danny Sullivan, asks him to meet with an important client. Deborah Swift's father, a Korean War veteran, walked out on the family when she was little. Now that her wealthy husband wants to run for political office, she hires Andy to find her father so that there will be no surprises during the campaign. One little clue leads Andy to Cape Cod and then Nantucket. Someone doesn't want Andy on the case. He's been shot at and pushed off a cliff. VERDICT This atmospheric debut mystery details Massachusetts in the fall and a soldier's life in Vietnam. And while there might be too many road signs and in-depth directions, Roark's case should appeal to fans of the early works of Dennis Lehane and Robert B. Parker.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

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