Plum Island

FROM OUR EDITORS

Biological warfare, hidden treasure, romance, and, of course, murder lie at the heart of DeMille's devilishly sharp and suspenseful Plum Island. When two Long Island biologists are found with bullets in their skulls, NYPD Detective John Corey investigates. Little does he know that this puzzling local crime will soon fester into a crisis of cataclysmic proportions.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide detective John Corey convalesces in the Long Island township of Southold, home to farmers, fishermen - and at least one killer. Tom and Judy Gordon, a young, attractive couple Corey knows, have been found on their patio, each with a bullet in the head. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, wants Corey's big-city expertise, but Maxwell gets more than he bargained for. The early signs point to a burglary gone wrong. But because the Gordons were biologists at Plum Island, the offshore animal disease research site rumored to be involved in germ warfare, it isn't long before the media is suggesting that the Gordons stole something very deadly. Suddenly a local double murder becomes a crime with national and worldwide implications. John Corey doesn't like mysteries, which is why he likes to solve them. His investigations lead him into the lore, legends, and ancient secrets of northern Long Island - more deadly and more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. During his journey of discovery, he meets two remarkable women, Detective Beth Penrose and Mayflower descendant Emma Whitestone, both of whom change his life irrevocably.

SYNOPSIS

The hair-raising suspense of The General's Daughter . . . the wry wit of The Gold Coast . . . this is vintage Nelson DeMille at the peak of his originality and the height of his powers.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Tom and Judy Gordon were bright, young, attractive scientists whom everyone seemed to like. So who would murder them-and why? Could their deaths have something to do with Plum Island, supposedly an animal research facility but possibly a top-secret site for biological warfare experiments? Could it involve a pirate's treasure buried in the vicinity more than 300 years ago? Returning to the Long Island, N.Y., setting of The Gold Coast (1990), DeMille makes his finest showing since that enormously popular book. Important to his success here is the catchy, ironic voice of narrator John Corey, a freewheeling Manhattan detective who's at his uncle's house on the Island to recover from bullet wounds and who gets tapped by the locals to act as "consultant" on the case. Key to the novel's sway is its boisterous plot, as DeMille expertly melds medical mystery, police procedural and nautical adventure, adding assorted love interests and capping matters with a ferocious storm at sea. Atmospherics are strong and the novel acquires its own storm force as it moves toward a cataclysmic denoument. DeMille's research seems sound as well, rendering the inner workings of a science lab as believable and fascinating as the discovery of treasure maps. It's a smooth job from an old pro who knows what readers are looking for.

Library Journal

While investigating the murder of a young Long Island couple, an NYPD detective is stunned to find that they may have been involved in dealing genetically altered viruses.

Library Journal

While investigating the murder of a young Long Island couple, an NYPD detective is stunned to find that they may have been involved in dealing genetically altered viruses.

AudioFile - Diana T. Herald

This enthralling tale of murder, lost treasure and romance is so skillfully abridged that the listener doesn�t feel shortchanged. An added bonus is a fascinating interview with Demille, who has a voice that would have been perfect for his homicide detective, John Corey. The narrator, who uses a huge repertoire of voices, unfortunately sounds like Rodney Dangerfield on occasion and uses a singsong cadence that would be very distracting if the story itself weren�t riveting. When he speaks in a woman�s voice, he sounds like a man trying to sound like a woman. D.T.H. �AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Since The Charm School (1988), DeMille's page-turning skills have only improved, peaking with The Gold Coast (1990), faltering on Spencerville (1994), and returning to form with this trip back to the Long Island venue of The Gold Coast.

This time, DeMille limns not the Fitzgeraldian wealth of Oyster Bay but rather the North Fork's comfortably well-off—but less-fancy citizens. An NYPD homicide detective, John Corey, has moved into his uncle's fine digs overlooking Great Peconic Bay. Restlessly recuperating from wounds received in the line of duty, he's happy to answer the summons of the Chief of the Southold Town PD, an old friend, who hires him to consult on the double murder of Tom and Judy Gordon, biologists who worked on (nonfictional) Plum Island, the site of animal disease research for the Department of Agriculture. Were the Gordons murdered because they'd stolen some valuable new vaccine, or even a dreaded virus? They'd obviously far outspent their income, living high on the hog and buying a very expensive and speedy powerboat as well as an acre of bluff overlooking the bay. Had they been running drugs? Corey doesn't think so, although an ice chest missing from their boat points to something forbidden being hauled from Plum Island. He teams up with Beth Penrose, a Southold detective working her first homicide. Their visit to the Plum Island research facility and the Gordons' labs reveals only that the FBI and CIA have sanitized the place and have run up false information for public consumption. Corey also falls in with the star-crossed Emma Whitestone, a researcher of historic artifacts and an expert on Captain Kidd's lost treasure, which is thought to be buried somewhere nearby. Among the murder suspects is nasty viniculturalist Fredric Tobin, a smoothie who lures the ladies with champagne and Concorde jets.

Heavy wisecracking keeps the fun flowing as DeMille cranks up a thrilling, entertaining plot.