Massacre Island: A Novel (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Martin Hegwood (Author)

Book Description

Series: St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries | Publication Date: October 13, 2002

Dauphin Island, AL: Three college students arrive at Jason Summers' beach house for the last big party of the season. Nausea strikes hard before the first shot of Tequila is ever poured: blood, everywhere. They have found the bodies.

Reporters and politicos scramble for position. Three of the victims belong to the Beautiful People: a smooth entrepreneur, a Beauty Queen, a News Anchor. The fourth, Rebecca Jordan, is forgotten in the frenzy that surrounds the killings.

Rebecca's mother, disgusted by the desecration of her daughter's memory, seeks help from Private Investigator Jack Delmas. He reluctantly accepts, and soon finds that appearances are not what they seem in this quaint community.

Beneath its surface lies a netherworld peopled by debauched jet-setters, international smugglers, and cunning, unpredictable murderers. It is a world where innocence can be swallowed whole, and where the best intentions of people like Rebecca Jordan can distort into grisly bloodbaths like the one that consumed her.

To win justice for Rebecca, Delmas allies with Jimbo McInnis, an oversized, fast-living, Hemingway-quoting deputy sheriff. Together, they must delve behind the madness to find the truth.

Doing so may cost them more than their reputations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his third Jack Delmas novel (after 2000's Green-Eyed Hurricane), Hegwood paints such an attractive picture of Dauphin Island, which lies off the coast of Alabama, one feels like packing one's bags and heading south. Jack comes to the island, very reluctantly, to investigate the murder of a young woman, Rebecca Jordan, one of four victims shot execution-style in the home of Rebecca's boyfriend, Jason Summers. The media have sensationalized the story, portraying the deaths as drug-related and Rebecca as a tramp. Her mother wants Jack to vindicate her name. Everyone's prime choice of the real target of the murders is Jason, a hotshot entrepreneur who made regular trips to Mexico in search of "clients" for his business. The authorities are convinced he was smuggling drugs, despite the lack of evidence. In truth, there's no evidence to suggest any motive for such a drastic crime. Jack's presence on the island is met with a similar, inexplicable hostility. Someone plants a letter bomb on his doorstep. Someone else threatens his daughter, with whom he has a refreshingly realistic relationship. Not easily intimidated, Jack puts his case together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with infinite patience and ably aided by Deputy Jimbo McInnes, who wants to be a private eye. Not least of this book's charms is that the ultimate solution concerns wheelbarrows. The absence of pointless violence also helps make this a pleasant read. Author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Private eye Jack Delmas (A Green-Eyed Hurricane), hired to find out why four people were murdered on Dauphin Island off the coast of Alabama, hopes to salvage a young woman's reputation from the media tabloids. His investigation turns up connections to a local ruffian/bookie with ties to a white supremacist organization, an ex-Nicaraguan death squad lawyer, and a violent environmentalist group headquartered on the island. Jack's child and fractious former wife also figure into the equation. Factual information, atmospheric detailing of the sultry Gulf Coast, and unnerving action make for an exciting read. Fans of Southern mysteries will enjoy this. Highly recommended.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (October 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312983158
• ISBN-13: 978-0312983154
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,710,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid sleuthing story, September 24, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Massacre Island: A Novel (Hardcover)

All private investigator Jack Delmas wants to do is have fun with his daughter before she returns home to her mother and watch a football game. However, his brother the lawyer sends a potential client to Jack at his home in Bay St. Louis. Carolyn Caviss wants to know why someone killed her beloved daughter Rebecca and three other people in Dauphin Island off the Alabama coast. Jack wants to refuse the grieving woman stating that the police are still investigating the murders. He cannot reject her plea especially when he sees the media is painting the quartet as a focus of drug and orgy activities while the Sheriff does nothing except appear on TV.

Jack travels to Dauphin Island and begins a careful inquiry so as to not run a foul of the local law enforcement investigation. However, with the help of Deputy Jimbo McInnis, Jack begins to uncover a twisted case that includes lunatic environmentalists, depraved wealthy individuals, and murderers who will kill a private sleuth getting to close to the truth.

MASSACRE ISLAND is an engaging private investigative mystery that works because the key players make the plot work. The story line is deep as the case twists and turns with each step that appears to bring Jack closer to the truth yet ends up meandering further from why Rebecca died. Martin Hegwood provides an entertaining tale for those who enjoy a solid sleuthing story.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Jack Delmas mystery, March 13, 2003

By 

Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Massacre Island: A Novel (Hardcover)

The novel starts with a 40-page out-of-place chapter as PI Jack Delmas and Sheriff's Deputy Jimbo McInnis spend a night on the town. Jimbo majored in football at Mississippi State University where he was a starting lineman. After drinking tequila shooters, Jimbo has a way of picking fights, e.g., going into a redneck bar filled with Univ. of Alabama fans and criticizing Bear Bryant's trademark hat ("What French Quarter queer joint you reckon he was cruising when he found that..."). The next morning he can't remember the brawl, doesn't know why he has a sore foot and mud all over his pickup, and he has a massive hangover.

The story then flashes back to the start when Jack was hired by a woman to determine why her daughter, along with three other young people, was murdered in a summer cabin on Dauphine Island. Matters are complicated when Jack's ex-wife runs her mouth about Jack's case. She only told her friend on Dauphine Island, but that was like telling the tabloids. Jack receives a death threat before he half begins his inquiries. The 220 pages following Chapter One are divided into 26 additional chapters.

The case involves possible smuggling, sports betting, environmental fanatics, various local watering holes with hard-drinking pool-playing rednecks, and assorted women (Jimbo is usually on the prowl). The reader learns various details about Jack's past life, and his incompatibility with his ex-wife - their preferred lifestyles are a mismatch (he was from a family of shrimpers and boat builders and played baseball at Ole Miss, she was a Rebelette from a cotton-planting banking family in higher society). Jack's ex- is jealous of the new women in his life, particularly if they have a bigger bust than she has.

The novel has an interesting plot, and contains helpful maps of Dauphine Island and the Mobile County, Alabama area. It will probably be of particular interest to people familiar with the Gulf Coast.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best in Stable, March 3, 2003

By 

Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Massacre Island: A Novel (Hardcover)

If you are new to Martin Hegwood, this is where to start. Other novels in the series are better than fair and worth the time( I prefer Green-Eyed Hurricane), but the necessary set-up information is here. Jack Delmas, divorced drop-out banker, private eye ( why are these P.I.s always retreads?) mixes with smugglers and bombers in an island setting in the company of a good ole boy "bubba" deputy sheriff with a high wheeled, swamp truck. Tavern brawls, parties with Jack's ex-wife's pre face lift crowd, and a next door group of costal undergraduates on weekend binge duty spice up an island inspired plot. This is a quick read, traditional who done what, that moves to a neatly prepared conclusion. Perfect book for a long plane ride or day at the beach.