THE DOUBLE-MINDED MEN

The third outing (A Beautiful Place to Die, The Woman Who Walked into the Sea) for Martha's Vineyard fisherman Jeff ``J.W.'' Jackson, a former Boston cop now busy full-time proposing to pretty nurse Zee Madieras and wolfing down homemade bluefish pÉte. But the idyll is interrupted when Zee is kidnapped, the courtly Willard Blunt dies a possible suicide, and the famous emerald necklace that Zee's aunt Amelia was returning to the Padishah of Sarofim—after decades of illegal ownership—disappears. Who took it? Did they also take Zee? And are rebellious Sarofim students trying to embarrass the crass, inhumane Padishah? Could there be a connection to the package Amelia blithely had posted to Sarofim nationalist Professor Hamdi Safuat? As this soap-operetta plot unwinds, there are bonito to catch, recipes to share, and a rescue to be effected by a local NRA advocate, whose target practice pays off. Genial banter, but silly clues and a necklace switch that would have been stale even back in Christie's heyday. Some droll humor, though, for Vineyard fans.