SHELL GAMES

It’s 1979, and Mickey, who was Surf City’s chief of police and is now Long Beach Island’s “one and only detective,” is in a helicopter above the southern New Jersey shoreline. The pilot is Claude Stellwag, who, like her recently deceased husband, is a Vietnam War veteran; he’s also one of her two current suitors. They fly over Crab Island, which features “the twisted timbers and ghostly girders of the once-bustling Fish Factory, known to generations of locals, tourists, fishermen and clammers as the Stinkhouse.” Mickey sees a flash of light coming from the now-abandoned island; this triggers her cop instincts, which she initially ignores. The narrative unfolds in chapters that share thethird-personviewpoints of several key players, by turns. Mickey soon returns to Crab Island with Claude; her other suitor, boat restorer Helly Hansen; and feisty secretary-turned-investigator Genetha Ralstonin tow. Gregory “The Pope” Devine, a man with “big money and a lot of political juice,” asks her to find his son Barry, who went missing a few hours after lunching with Ilsa Schoenweiss, the new CEO of Atlantic City’s Bombay Hotel & Casino. Mickey smells a setup, and, indeed, she ends up having a showdown with Devine’s operatives on Crab Island. She also deals with bumbling youths whose scheme to illegally import supersized coconut crabs goes terribly awry, andeven encounters a hurricane. South Jersey native Waters packs a lot of wild action and home-state color into this rollicking crime thriller. The story plays out as an entertaining mashup of Elmore Leonard-–sque goon-squad shenanigans and extraordinary Jurassic Park–and Twister-type battles with nature. Over the course of the narrative, the author makes pit stops to opine on Bruce Springsteen’s music, “convenient disappearances” in the notorious Pine Barrens, and the quality of mob-joint pizza. “Adventures were one thing, but the last eighteen hours had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced,” wisecracking Genetha appropriately muses to herself near the end of this novel; at one point, for instance, she and Mickey find themselves perched high upon a shaky ladder on the island’s water tower to escape hurricane flooding. (This prompts their male cohorts to dub them Supergirl and Catwoman.) Along the way, Waters skillfully withholds information from readers and executes slow reveals to great dramatic effect, often employing cliffhanger chapter endings. Mysterious island creatures, for example, are introduced with “a scritching kind of sound—something between scraping and scratching” before readers get to witness their gory impact. The author does an admirable job of weaving elements of Mickey’s complex backstory into the proceedings. However, when the detective is forced to flee at the end of the novel, it feels rather abrupt, and the impetus for her flight is a bit unclear. Presumably, an upcoming installment will clarify such matters.

May 1, 2025 - 05:14

It’s 1979, and Mickey, who was Surf City’s chief of police and is now Long Beach Island’s “one and only detective,” is in a helicopter above the southern New Jersey shoreline. The pilot is Claude Stellwag, who, like her recently deceased husband, is a Vietnam War veteran; he’s also one of her two current suitors. They fly over Crab Island, which features “the twisted timbers and ghostly girders of the once-bustling Fish Factory, known to generations of locals, tourists, fishermen and clammers as the Stinkhouse.” Mickey sees a flash of light coming from the now-abandoned island; this triggers her cop instincts, which she initially ignores. The narrative unfolds in chapters that share thethird-personviewpoints of several key players, by turns. Mickey soon returns to Crab Island with Claude; her other suitor, boat restorer Helly Hansen; and feisty secretary-turned-investigator Genetha Ralstonin tow. Gregory “The Pope” Devine, a man with “big money and a lot of political juice,” asks her to find his son Barry, who went missing a few hours after lunching with Ilsa Schoenweiss, the new CEO of Atlantic City’s Bombay Hotel & Casino. Mickey smells a setup, and, indeed, she ends up having a showdown with Devine’s operatives on Crab Island. She also deals with bumbling youths whose scheme to illegally import supersized coconut crabs goes terribly awry, andeven encounters a hurricane.

South Jersey native Waters packs a lot of wild action and home-state color into this rollicking crime thriller. The story plays out as an entertaining mashup of Elmore Leonard-–sque goon-squad shenanigans and extraordinary Jurassic Park–and Twister-type battles with nature. Over the course of the narrative, the author makes pit stops to opine on Bruce Springsteen’s music, “convenient disappearances” in the notorious Pine Barrens, and the quality of mob-joint pizza. “Adventures were one thing, but the last eighteen hours had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced,” wisecracking Genetha appropriately muses to herself near the end of this novel; at one point, for instance, she and Mickey find themselves perched high upon a shaky ladder on the island’s water tower to escape hurricane flooding. (This prompts their male cohorts to dub them Supergirl and Catwoman.) Along the way, Waters skillfully withholds information from readers and executes slow reveals to great dramatic effect, often employing cliffhanger chapter endings. Mysterious island creatures, for example, are introduced with “a scritching kind of sound—something between scraping and scratching” before readers get to witness their gory impact. The author does an admirable job of weaving elements of Mickey’s complex backstory into the proceedings. However, when the detective is forced to flee at the end of the novel, it feels rather abrupt, and the impetus for her flight is a bit unclear. Presumably, an upcoming installment will clarify such matters.