Review by Booklist Review
On Long Island's North Fork, wonderfully roguish NYPD bad-boy detective John Corey assists the local police chief at a crime scene that features a house deck garnished with a married couple dead of clean head shots. Investigators suppose that the pair, researchers at a heavily guarded lab on Plum Island, were involved in smuggling a viral antidote. But Corey, unpersuaded, soon discovers that local history and buried-treasure lore fascinated the victims, which led to a relationship with North Fork's leading socialite, the foppish Fredric Tobin. Three more people die prematurely, and the chase is on. DeMille's Mike Hammer^-like cop is a chuckle-provoking winner, and the plot cleverly combines biological hazards and shiver-me-timbers pirate legends. An entertaining mix from the big-selling DeMille. --Gilbert Taylor
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Tom and Judy Gordon were bright, young, attractive scientists whom everyone seemed to like. So who would murder themand why? Could their deaths have something to do with Plum Island, supposedly an animal research facility but possibly a top-secret site for biological warfare experiments? Could it involve a pirate's treasure buried in the vicinity more than 300 years ago? Returning to the Long Island, N.Y., setting of The Gold Coast (1990), DeMille makes his finest showing since that enormously popular book. Important to his success here is the catchy, ironic voice of narrator John Corey, a freewheeling Manhattan detective who's at his uncle's house on the Island to recover from bullet wounds and who gets tapped by the locals to act as "consultant" on the case. Key to the novel's sway is its boisterous plot, as DeMille expertly melds medical mystery, police procedural and nautical adventure, adding assorted love interests and capping matters with a ferocious storm at sea. Atmospherics are strong and the novel acquires its own storm force as it moves toward a cataclysmic denoument. DeMille's research seems sound as well, rendering the inner workings of a science lab as believable and fascinating as the discovery of treasure maps. It's a smooth job from an old pro who knows what readers are looking for. $500,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection; Doubleday Audio Book Club main selection; foreign rights sold in 10 countries; author tour; rights: Nicholas Ellison. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
While investigating the murder of a young Long Island couple, an NYPD detective is stunned to find that they may have been involved in dealing genetically altered viruses. A 500,000-copy first printing. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Since The Charm School (1988), DeMiile's page-turning skills have only improved, peaking with The Gold Coast (1990), faltering on Spencerville (1994), and returning to form with this trip back to the Long Island venue of The Gold Coast. This time, DeMille limns not the Fitzgeraldian wealth of Oyster Bay but rather the North Fork's comfortably well-off--but less-fancy citizens. An NYPD homicide detective, John Corey, has moved into his uncle's fine digs overlooking Great Peconic Bay. Restlessly recuperating from wounds received in the line of duty, he's happy to answer the summons of the Chief of the Southold Town PD, an old friend, who hires him to consult on the double murder of Tom and Judy Gordon, biologists who worked on (nonfictional) Plum Island, the site of animal disease research for the Department of Agriculture. Were the Gordons murdered because they'd stolen some valuable new vaccine, or even a dreaded virus? They'd obviously far outspent their income, living high on the hog and buying a very expensive and speedy powerboat as well as an acre of bluff overlooking the bay. Had they been running drugs? Corey doesn't think so, although an ice chest missing from their boat points to something forbidden being hauled from Plum Island. He teams up with Beth Penrose, a Southold detective working her first homicide. Their visit to the Plum Island research facility and the Gordons' labs reveals only that the FBI and CIA have sanitized the place and have run up false information for public consumption. Corey also falls in with the star-crossed Emma Whitestone, a researcher of historic artifacts and an expert on Captain Kidd's lost treasure, which is thought to be buried somewhere nearby. Among the murder suspects is nasty viniculturalist Fredric Tobin, a smoothie who lures the ladies with champagne and Concorde jets. Heavy wisecracking keeps the fun flowing as DeMille cranks up a thrilling, entertaining plot. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
