Bullets, bees and a fast-paced beach book

Deadout

By Jon McGoran

Forge. 384 pp. $24.99

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Reviewed by David Hiltbrand

Doyle Carrick is a Philadelphia police detective. But so far, the protagonist of Jon McGoran's punchy mysteries doesn't spend much time in the city.

In Drift and now Deadout, right off the bat Carrick gets involved in some nasty business that has his superiors strongly suggesting he take some personal time. (Why doesn't that ever happen at newspapers?)

So it is that the cop ends up in the decidedly un-Philadelphia-like setting of Martha's Vineyard. But Carrick doesn't get much time to watch the sun set over the harbor while eating lobster.

There are evil men abroad, including one thug who tries to gun down Carrick in the Oak Bluffs Campground, a scale village right out of Munchkinland. Before the book is over, the idyllic island is overrun with well-munitioned private security goons.

Why? Well, it starts with all the bees disappearing. It's not colony collapse disorder. They're just gone. And even Martha couldn't maintain a vineyard without those busy little pollinators.

The author worked for years for the Weavers Way Co-op, which has member-owned natural-food markets in Northwest Philadelphia. He now edits the sustainability magazine Grid. Not surprisingly, his Carrick mysteries revolve around environmental issues. (McGoran's publisher has branded the books "ecological thrillers.")

The threat in Deadout (as it was in Drift) is greedy corporations trying to slip genetically modified products into the food chain without any consideration for consequences. In this case, you get drones that make those Africanized bees of a few years ago look like pacifists.

Bullets and bees keep Carrick hopping. But he has personal matters to deal with, too. A spoiled trustafarian who fancies himself an eco-warrior is really getting on the detective's nerves. So is an arrogant former reality-show competition winner who owns the biggest berry farm on the Vineyard. And Carrick can't decide if he wants to dance with the lady he brung to the island or the beautiful scientist he just met.

McGoran's style is at once hard-boiled and enjoyably breezy. His character descriptions tend to the generic ("The door to one of the cabins opened and two women in their early twenties came out, one large and solid, the other small and wiry with a long braid"). But he keeps the plot and the action humming along in a way that makes Deadout an excellent beach book.

Even if you can't afford Martha's Vineyard.

John McGoran: "Deadout"

7 p.m. Monday at Main Point Books, 1041 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn MawrEndText