Diver's Paradise

February 3, 2020
Goodwin’s impressive debut and series launch introduces retired Rockford, Ill., police detective Roscoe Conklin, who, on the verge of 50, has moved to the Caribbean island of Bonaire and bought a small hotel. His days consist of scuba diving trips and picking out tunes on his banjo between bottles of beer. Then Conklin’s former partner, Bill Ryberg, and his wife, Marybeth, are murdered back in Illinois. After providing Conklin with a few details of the deaths, his former colleagues close ranks, leaving him with more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Conklin’s friend Tiffany and her petulant boyfriend arrive for a vacation, and an angry building contractor starts to hound him. When people on the island who have had contact with Conklin start dying violently, he realizes that he may also be a target for the murderer. The plot has a few holes, but the author knows Bonaire well and provides some tantalizing descriptions of island life, including thrilling scuba diving scenes. Fans of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee will look forward to seeing more of Conklin.

March 1, 2020
Retired cop Roscoe Conklin is having a fine time on a Caribbean island, imbibing Amstel and managing a hotel he bought when he quit the police. Things couldn't get better. So they get worse. He learns of a double murder?his old cop partner and his wife?in his hometown of Rockford, Illinois. He has the murder file sent to him, and, a good detective, he notices things out of joint: a photo of an ad with no contact info; ballistics dope the cops shouldn't have; a coffee mug with the handle pointing the wrong way. Conklin keeps asking questions, and bad things start happening on his peaceful island. He's beaten up, a friend is hurt in a smashup that might have been meant for him. Then a murder, followed by the realization that it all flows from what happened in Rockford. Goodwin tells this in a matter-of-fact style that sometimes drones on a bit. Still, the content makes up for the style, and patience is rewarded with an airborne-gun moment and, on the way, an explanation for that coffee mug.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)