1980 mystery, fifteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry
Tibbett. Henry and Emmy are back in the British Seaward Islands for
a boating holiday. But people have been disappearing…
Even Moyes nods. Drug smuggling is a major plot point, in
particular the psychological effects of PCP; and while I can believe
that she wrote what she was told by her medical advisors ("I would like
to take this opportunity to express my most sincere thanks to Helen
and Charles Marwick for the time and trouble that they took to
research the medical data for this book."), it's just not consistent
with people I've known who've taken the stuff. Ah well.
Apart from that it's rather good. We have various people appearing
under various names, a complex smuggling scheme taking advantage of
the vagaries of small-island formalities, intercepted radio messages,
and a great deal of uncertainty about who may be working for the
criminals. Not much of a murder mystery exactly, more of a "how do we
catch them before they pull off their big plot", but there's a lot for
Emmy to do when her husband is out of action.
There's also some lovely touristic writing about being on the ground
when a hurricane passes by, with lots of little details about
preparations and recovery. This sort of thing declined in the 1970s
and 1980s when actually going to exotic places became more accessible
to many people, but I find it pleasing because of the personal context
laid on top of the bare facts.
Awkward, but still good.
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