Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others!

The Off–Islander – Peter Colt

Private Investigator Andy Roark is a bit of a loner, grabbing divorce and cheating spouse cases to make a living. He’s Boston raised, and Vietnam bred and just doesn’t quite fit in with society any longer. Used to a purpose for everything, he struggles with PTSD in a world he sees with no order. Andy’s closest friend is Danny Sullivan, his childhood buddy and now successful attorney, who calls Andy with a missing person’s case. A wealthy client in San Francisco is looking for the father who disappeared many years ago. With her husband making a Senate run, she wants to ensure there will be no surprises forthcoming from the past.

Andy flies to the west coast and meets with Deborah Swift. There he learns of her father, Charlie Hammond, also a war vet, who headed out for a pack of cigarettes one evening, never to return to his family. Despite her hiring Pinkerton detectives, his trail ran cold, and Andy may her last hope. Pinkerton was able to learn that several checks from the VA were sent to Hyannis MA before they stopped altogether. She and Danny are hopeful that as a Boston ‘insider’ he’ll discover things that others cannot.

Intrigued, Andy takes the case. Upon visiting the address where the checks were delivered, he discovers an old woman who used to run a commune of sorts on her property. After speaking with her and learning of her youthful exploits and the many vagrant visitors she had back in the day, he’s intrigued by her explanations and her inability to remember if Charlie Hammond had ever been one of them. When he takes his leave, he does a bit of snooping and finds a pretty sophisticated camera system, and evidence of drug dealing. What seemed like a dead end is suddenly much more interesting.

As Andy keeps digging and gets ever closer to his prey, he inadvertently raises the ire of others, and strange things start happening. A shove out of nowhere that launches him off of a hillside, a very close call or two in the woods, and an unexpected (well, perhaps in retrospect it was to be expected) ending, will keep the pages turning deep into the night, and the mystery lover satisfied!

The book started off a bit slow for me, but then took off like a rocket. The characters are engaging - though at times difficult to like – and the backstories into their lives serve to help us understand why they are who they are for this novel. I thoroughly enjoyed Andy’s character and really hope to see him continue to develop and grow in future novels! Here’s hoping!!

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective (if not very, very overdue) review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A relatively simple private investigator story. The characters are well developed and interesting. There are enough people being investigated that the reader would have fun thinking about who is involved and why. A good read at the beach book.

Classic detective story, this time with an Iraqi army veteran complete with flashbacks and dreams. Also with knowledge attained through his service which comes in handy. Excellent read.

Andy Roark is looking for Charlie Hammond because his daughter is concerned that he might pop up and cause problems for her husband's political campaign. Reset your brain to 1982 because that's th year Colt has chosen to start what might be a series. Roark is a Vietnam veteran with PTSD so know that there will be references to that conflict. He's also struggling to make a living doing small time PI work while his childhood friend Danny Sullivan is a big time attorney, who, has sent him this job. Set in Boston, Cape Cod, and Nantucket, this has good area atmospherics. Roark's a good tortured hero with smarts, the mystery evolves logically, and it's well written. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

I like this author's voice. Very much. But this book needs editing, BADLY. Long back story sections need to be cut and more basic type/poor wording edits also required. The most exciting findings aren't always played up as they could be. Like when the old hippy's house burns and she dies. He's just like, huh. Maybe that's suspicious. That's just one example. Good potential here, but not fully baked.

Andy Roark is just a guy doing the best he can. A stint in Vietnam left him a changed man & after a short career as a cop, he decided it would be better to work for himself as a PI. So he picks & chooses low level cases that support his simple life.

Andy & best friend Danny Sullivan grew up in the tough area of Boston known as Southie. While Andy went off to war, Danny went to college & became a successful lawyer. So what if most of his clients are of the “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” variety. He’s living the high life, baby & he’s got a job for his old pal.

Deborah Swift is a wealthy woman whose husband is a rising political star. When she was a child, her father went out for cigarettes & never came back. He was last seen a decade ago around Cape Cod & she needs someone to find out what became of him. Discretely. God forbid he pop back up during the election & cause a scandal.

Discretion is Andy’s middle name & not only will it give him a break from cheating spouses, it means a huge payday. All he has to do is hand over his findings to Danny & collect the cheque. Deal.

Ah, if only it were that simple. Andy’s search for Charles Hammond eventually leads him to Nantucket & it’s not long before he realizes there is more to Hammond’s story than he was told.

What follows is a well written slow burn kind of suspense with a moody, noirish feel. Initially there’s this vague sense of unease, something you can’t quite put your finger on, that makes you want Andy to watch his back. He’s a compelling character with a firm code of ethics who would rather do what’s right instead of what’s legal.

The book is set in 1982 & reflects the culture of the time. Vietnam vets still hesitate to mention they fought & no one has heard of PTSD. Andy’s scars are invisible & he’s carefully curated a solitary existence that helps him cope with the psychological tics he brought home. He & Danny are polar opposites. They’re bound by their shared childhood history & I found myself wondering if they’d be friends if they met now. Because Danny is kind of a dick. Mind you, he has a few things on his mind. Being a mob lawyer can be a little stressful & as his behaviour becomes more erratic you begin to question why this case matters so much.

I really enjoyed this. The search for Hammond has plenty of forks in the road to challenge your detective skills but it’s time with Andy that kept me reading. He’s a good man with flaws who is just trying to find his place in a world that doesn’t always make sense. He’s struggling to figure out who he is now & over the course of the story you watch as he slowly accepts that maybe you really can’t go home again.

The pace picks up for the last quarter as all is revealed including the darker sides of Andy’s character. It’s a case that makes him face some hard truths & I’d like to meet up with him again to see where he goes from here. If you enjoy the style of authors such as Robert B. Parker, Douglas Skelton & Malcolm Mackay, give this a shot.

Fans of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser will be pleased to meet a new tough-guy PI conducting business in the Boston area. Andy Roark has been back from Vietnam for about ten years, during which he became a police officer before leaving to work as a private detective. He is still haunted by his wartime experiences, but the skills honed during this time give him an advantage in investigating crimes. This case has him searching for a long-missing man as a favor to his childhood friend, a high-level attorney. The action unfolds in a way that is reminiscent of the flow of classic PI novels, with the detective sort of poking around, occasionally provoking people and getting attacked, and then putting together a solution for the client. The eighties setting is appealing, even if the reminders of when the story is happening are slightly heavy-handed (we probably don’t need quite so many references to cultural markers of the era to get the point) or ocasionally anachronistic (Reagan’s "first term" is referenced while is it happening, which is inauthentic in the same way as a coin date-stamped “B.C.”) These details could just have been in this pre-publication digital review version, which I was able read thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. I hope that this book is the start of a series and look forward to reading more Andy Roark novels.