The Body in Blackwater Bay: A Jack Stryker Mystery [Hardcover]

Paula Gosling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1992

Convalescing after suffering a gunshot wound, Detective Lieutenant Jack Stryker and his girlfriend are spending two weeks in the Blackwater Bay area of the Great Lakes. But when a body washes ashore, Jack is obliged to get out of his hammock and help the local sheriff find the killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gosling ( Death Penalties ) sets up a subtle variation on a locked-room mystery on tiny Paradise Island in the Great Lakes, as Midwest detective Jack Stryker puzzles with an array of subplots and suggestions of psychological menace lurking in the backwoods (or, here, backwaters). On remote Paradise, the cottages are generally handed down among the island's original families; a narrow bridge keeps out most of the rest of the world, while the pungent, boglike Mush nearby turns away developers. Stryker, recovering from a gunshot wound, is there with his girlfriend; Daria Gray, an artist, has returned from New York to escape her psychotic husband, who, she says, is hunting her. Meanwhile, a mysterious bid is made for the Mush and the secretive Wilberforces move in, building fences and hiring security men and guard dogs. Fluidly cutting from one plot to another, Gosling adeptly juggles business intrigue, small-town gossip and psychological trickery. Stryker remains a genuine, low-key pleasure and the islanders represent a beguiling cross-section of society.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Daria Grey--who complained long and loud to everyone on tiny Paradise Island (ten families, most of them property owners for years) that her estranged husband was threatening her--is the number one suspect when he lies, dead, on her own front lawn. Nudged to action by his girlfriend Kate, Detective Lieutenant Jack Stryker agrees to help her childhood chum Daria--and with some steady backup from island sheriff Matt Gabriel and some humorous asides from his partner Tos (like Stryker, convalescing from wounds), he tackles the case, interviews the islanders, attends a town meeting, barely escapes from guard dogs, and eventually uncovers all the secrets of the community--including which family is smuggling wealthy Asians into the country, which islanders are in cahoots to sell their property to outsiders, and who killed more than once to protect a get-rich scheme. Easygoing study of an insular vacation enclave, with touches of romance and comedy. Nothing particularly new here, but Gosling's (Death Penalties, 1991, etc.) Blackwater Bay has charm, as do her characters. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892964596
• ISBN-13: 978-0892964598
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,336,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Michigan island, September 28, 2011

By 

B. Hudson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Body in Blackwater Bay: A Jack Stryker Mystery (Hardcover)

Once I got into the story of this island somewhere in

Lake Michigan and the its cottgaes.I read more and more. How something big is trying to buy up cottages that have been in the families for generations to develop something "sinister"or so it seems to these summer people. A murder and a visiting detective on vacation reluctant to help the local sheriff adds just enough tension to keep the plot going.

Just an aside :I think the author who lives in England could review the geography of the Great Lakes. She puts the island somewhere under the Macinaw Bridge.

4.0 out of 5 stars Murder Mystery and Mischief!, January 9, 2009

By 

Tenaya Jacob (Bolin) "author of Seasonings of... (Logan, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Body in Blackwater Bay (Hardcover)

Paula Gosling has written a novel that, although it is slow starting out, becomes more interesting as a web of conspiracy, greed and deception are spun. On a small island, where simplicity of life is maintained by its long term residents, the unthinkable happens. When a distraught woman's malicious husband turns up dead, she becomes the prime suspect. Has she finally had enough of his disturbing manipulations or is someone out to frame her? Find out for yourself in "The Body in Blackwater Bay."

-Tenaya Jacob, author of "Seasonings of the Soul."