AMAGANSETT by Mark Mills

When a New England fisherman pulls up a woman’s body in his net, I know I’m reading a thriller.  However, the prose is so elegant that I really did not want this novel to end.   Conrad Labarde is the fisherman in question, and it turns out that he and the woman were lovers, although he neglects to mention this affair to the police.  The dead woman, Lillian Wallace, comes from a very wealthy family who have the death of another young woman on their consciences.  Conrad tantalizes Deputy Chief Tom Hollis with questions about Lillian’s death, such as why she was wearing earrings for an ocean swim.  The two men each have their own reasons for wanting to find out if Lillian’s cause of death was actually murder rather than an accidental drowning.  These two men are both very compelling and well-developed characters, especially Conrad, as are the rather unsavory members of the Wallace family.  Conrad is a tough cookie with a military history, making him a formidable adversary for anyone wanting to shut him up.  Hollis, on the other hand, is stymied mostly by his own police chief.  The pacing of this novel is just right, and I loved it from start to finish.  There is one unresolved loose end, but I can live with that, and I probably won’t reread the book to see if I missed something, although I did reread what I thought were the pertinent sections.  Honestly, there are not a lot of surprises or twists here, but I really enjoyed the way the story unfolds and the manner in which it is told.