Rogue (An Ike Schwartz Mystery)

Ike Schwartz and Ruth Harris had to delay a vacation in Las Vegas because, at the last moment, Ruth was required to go to Scone Island, Maine, to settle an estate. But that task is soon complicated by one and then another suspicious death. First, a long-time resident slips off a cliff. Was he pushed? Then the woman who found the body is discovered on a foot path dead from an apparent heart attack and a head wound that is not easily explained. Ruth finds herself briefly cast as a person of interest in the second death. When things seem to be slipping out of hand, Ike arrives just in time to witness the discovery of a third body, that of Simon Weiss.

Weiss had come to the island to purchase properties with an eye to turning it into a high-end resort. His tactics and personality so alienated the residents that it is no surprise that he is killed, his body found under the community pier with a professionally placed bullet hole in his forehead. As his plans were allegedly financed by the New York Mafia, it seems obvious who ordered the hit. This brings the FBI into play, to the distress of the local police.

With an array of suspects, motives, and even the island's history to confound the investigation, Ike, with the aid of local Deputy Sheriff Tom Stone and the able, if quirky, assistance of Ruth, unravels these three deaths but not without heavy costs to villains, residents, and their children.