Death Rides the Ferry: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

In Skalka’s labored fourth mystery set in Wisconsin’s Door County (after 2016’s Death in Cold Water), Sheriff Dave Cubiak is enjoying a day off at the viola da gamba music festival, Dixan, on remote Washington Island, until he’s summoned to a ferry, where the body of a shabbily dressed young woman sits in the vessel’s lounge. Cubiak saw the woman eating lunch earlier in the day. The ferry captain is reminded of another young woman’s death, 40 years earlier, at the first Dixan festival. That event was also notable for the theft of a valuable 16th-century yellow viol, which was never recovered. The fate of the missing viol ties in with a trio of musicians, including George Peter Payette, “one of the world’s foremost gambists and the only one to participate in every Dixan festival.” Cubiak has to figure out the relationships among Payette and others in the music community as his hunt for a killer heads to its violent conclusion. This outing may appeal to those interested in the world of classical musicians, but the tortuous plot will put off most mystery readers. (May)