Don't Drink the Water

In Edgar Award-nominated Cooper's latest E.J. Pugh mystery (after Not in My Backyard), the sometime sleuth, her three sisters and their mates reluctantly come together for a family vacation in the Caribbean. E.J. has an unlucky knack for finding dead bodies, so it is no great shock when one is discovered in the family's beachfront house. Her sister Liz recognizes the deceased as her husband's new receptionist, and the stress of being murder suspects soon brings the siblings' strained relations to the breaking point. Ultimately, piecing together the truth allows the sisters unusual insights, and the possibility of reconciliation--or at least willful tolerance--emerges. Though Cooper's characters rarely stray from the predictable and it's easy to anticipate much of the plot (E.J. always appears in the right place at the right time), many readers will identify with the family's rivalry, jealousy and pettiness in what, as a whole, is an entertaining, light mystery. (July)