Nantucket Five-spot

November 10, 2014
Near the outset of Axelrod’s satisfying follow-up to 2014’s Nantucket Sawbuck, island police chief Henry “Hank” Kennis thinks a bomb threat—to blow up the summer Boston Pops concert, where political and business elite gather—is a teenage prank, so he’s surprised when Department of Homeland Security agents Jack Tornovitch, with whom he tangled on an earlier case, and Frances Tate, a romantic interest from that same case, arrive on Nantucket. Meanwhile, Zeke Beaumont, a former U.S. Army sergeant who served 10 years for drug dealing in Iraq, also comes to the island, to take vengeance on the military officer he blames for his incarceration. Hank’s knowledge of Nantucket and its residents pits him against Jack, who focuses only on local suspects. Suspense builds when Hank discovers a frame-up within a frame-up, and he races the clock to identify and stop the bomber. Despite a pasteboard villain and a far-fetched climax, Axelrod crafts an enjoyable, fast-paced read.

December 1, 2014

In the second Henry Kennis mystery (after Nantucket Sawbuck), the summer tourist season on Nantucket is under way when a threat to bomb the Boston Pops concert disrupts the holiday feeling, although the poetry-writing police chief suspects this may be a distraction to cover up a much bigger and more dangerous conspiracy.

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