KELLEY ROOS – Murder on Martha’s Vineyard. Walker, hardcover, 1981; paperback, 1986.

   Readers in this part of the country [New England] are likely to pick this one up solely because of its title, read a page or two, and then find themselves suddenly hooked and being reeled in by one of the most suspenseful thrillers I’ve read in quite some time.

   The background turns out to be only incidental. Audrey and William Roos, the names behind the joint Kelley Roos by-line, are a couple of old pros, however, who know all the tricks in snagging the reader’s attention and, more importantly, in holding it.

   A young newlywed returns to the island with her new husband, only to find resentment still blazing on the part of one of the natives, who thinks she got off too easily when she was acquitted for the murder of her first husband.

   She hires an old, used-up private eye to help clear her name, and he does a pretty good job of detective work before he’s finished, but too late. Situations where kidnapping is involved always produce a tremendous amount of tension, and here’s no exception.

   I don’t want to give away too much, but while a good deal of what follows is predictable enough, you shouldn’t really expect a happy ending. Not completely, that is.

Rating: B plus.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 5, No. 5, Sept-Oct 1981. This review also appeared earlier in the Hartford Courant.