First Light

I love Craig's Vineyard series, so I thought I would try the combined Jackson/Coyne books too. This one certainly didn't dissappoint. The alternating chapters written from J.W.'s and Brady's perspectives worked great, and the mystery was outstanding. Several red herrings were cleverly threaded into the story, keeping the reader guessing as to the nature of the possible crimes and perpetrators. I highly recommend this book!

Author Tapply has written a series of books about lawyer and amateur sleuth Brady Coyne. It is difficult to describe the Brady Coyne books except, possibly, to note that they all read like a letter from an old friend. The details of Coyne's comings and goings, his meals, his hobbies, his love interests, and his tracking down of the bad guys...are all told in an engaging style as if he were writing to each reader alone. These are the kind of books you want to "curl up with" - along with some goodie to gnaw on and a little special-wet to drink. Wish Tapply had written a hundred of 'em.

I have read all of Philip R. Craig's Martha's Vineyard mysteries, but have never read those of William Tapply. I find that I enjoyed the interplay of the writers to create alternating chapters, although I wish there were more details, more character development and so forth.I'm disappointed to see how many Tapply novels are out of print and hope I'll be able to find some in my Internet shopping forays.

Authors Philip Craig and William Tapply join together with their heroes J.W. Jackson and Brady Coyne to create a pleasant mystery set on Martha's Vineyard. Coyne has come to the island to advise his client Sarah Fairchild as to whether to sell her valuable beachfront property to golf course developers or environmentalists. Sarah is in precarious health and feels as if she needs to make this decision quickly. J.W. has been commissioned to find Katherine Bannerman who left her husband, came the island and then disappeared. When not involved in business, however, the two friends join forces to enter the fishing derby, which is a big event on Martha's Vineyard. Also J.W. is helping his two young children build a treehouse. Threats are made against J.W. and Brady, and Jackson's wife Zee has her tires slashed while at work. They work together trying to find out who is at the bottom of all of this. I wondered how the two authors would work together on this joint effort and they used the format of each one writing every other chapter, which features his hero. This is a pleasant book and an enjoyable read but, disappointingly the murderer was too easy to spot. The two main characters worked well together and would be a good match in future books.

Attorney Brady Coyne is driving from Boston to Martha's Vineyard to combine pleasure with business. Brady plans to spend some time with close friend and sleuth J.W. Jackson while also finalizing the will of the dying Sarah Fairchild. Brady and JW plan to spend as much time fishing together as possible so they really want to ignore the plea of local resident James Bannerman whose wife Katherine is missing. However, though Brady has plenty to do between fishing and handling the Fairchild estate, Zee, the wife of JW, decides to arrange a date between their friend and Sarah's nurse Molly Wood. When Molly fails to show up for the date, Zee believes something catastrophic had to occur. She persuades her spouse and Brady to look into the matter. Though both are reluctant to investigate they compare notes and soon realize the eerie similarities between Molly and Katherine and start following the clues. The collaboration between William G Tapply & Philip R Craig is fun to follow as each one's sleuth takes turns telling the story. The lead detectives retain their essence form their own respective series yet their friendship rings genuine. The who-done-it barely turns on the fictional sleuths investigating it so that the audience feels they would rather join the two detectives fishing. Still FIRST LIGHT contains a charm because of the camaraderie between the two stars.Harriet Klausner