Island of Last Resorts

A tedious romance and a penchant on the author’s part to slap on backstory with a trowel weigh down Ellis’s plodding third outing for PI Kate Weller (after Sweet Taste of Revenge). Kate, who has returned to Charleston, S.C., and to her boyfriend, chef Eric Manfredi, receives a message from her boss, Nate Price, inviting her and the rest of the Price Agency investigative team to an all-expenses-paid getaway on Elysian, a private island off the Georgia coast, owned by Julian Frazier. All Frazier asks in return is that the operatives participate in a murder mystery game . Of course, the only way to get to Elysian is on Frazier’s private yacht. Kate is delayed, and, by the time she arrives, several people have been murdered and her remarkably dull-witted colleagues are fighting for their lives. Clunky prose doesn’t help (“she loved one man of Italian heritage more than life itself”). This tiresome romantic mystery is a haphazard collection of clichés. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (Nov.)