FISHERMAN’S BEND

Maine fishermen almost flummox a tough detective relocated from Miami.

Jane Bunker, who thought she’d seen everything after nailing Florida lowlifes, is nonplussed that tiny Green Haven, Maine, has proven to be just as dangerous (Slipknot, 2007). Doing double duty as an insurance inspector for Marine Safety Consultants and assistant sheriff for Knox County, Jane is returning with her 60-plus friend Cal from viewing damaged equipment aboard the Quest, a vessel authorized to survey the ocean floor in Cobscook Bay, when they come upon a lobster boat circling unmanned. The captain of the Eva B. may be drowned or holding on to a buoy. Later, a body surfaces in a boat’s nets, but it turns out to be a Guatemalan crew member of the Asprella. Where then is the missing Parker? He earned the enmity of his late heroin-addicted son Jason and the dislike of Green Haven’s other family of lobster trollers; a Native American chief opposed his right to fish; and the State of Maine was undercutting his living by establishing oyster beds in the bay. There’ll be squalls, boat ramming, truck nudging and one-on-one confrontations before Jane realizes Parker was also working two jobs, one of them highly illegal.

A primer in how to acclimate to Down Easterners that includes step-by-step instructions in knot-tying, navigation and climbing in and out of listing lobster boats. Jane’s the best thing to happen to water since Travis McGee.