THE OWNLEY INN

This has a bit too much substance for classification as straight mystery, but it should get a plus sale on that score. The Lincolns, father and son, collaborate on a Down East island story, concerned with the disappearance of a collectors' treasure, a first edition of the famed New England Primer, Murder, assault, robbery, all make the usually peaceful island a hunted place, and it takes ingenuity and sticktuitiveness on the part of the inn keeper who tells half the story, and the young library curator who shouldered some blame for the loss, to run down slight clues and discover the criminal. Good regional background, with Cape Cod type of characters. Good rentals.