The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea: A Jeff Jackson/Martha's Vineyard Mystery

Bluefish and adultery, infused with sun and sea and spiced with academic jealousy and local lore, are served up in Craig's second entertaining mystery set in Martha's Vineyard and featuring the agreeable Boston-cop-turned-fisherman, J. W. Jackson. Literature professors Ian McGregor and elderly, acid-tongued Marjorie Summerharp are on the island writing a paper about a lost Shakespearean play. Jackson's true love, Zee Madeiras, has begun dating the charming McGregor when Summerharp's body turns up in a trawling net. Jackson, using his knowledge of the tides, suspects she has been murdered. Tracing the dead woman's recent past, he meets other, mostly randy, academics summering on the Vineyard; a couple running an upscale meditation center that also offers physical fulfillment; and Tristan Cooper, an 80-year-old former professor most interested now in local stones he believes are evidence of European settlement long before Columbus. Red herrings swim with the bluefish as hardy/sensitive Jackson weathers storms climatic and emotional to win back his girl and solve the mystery. (Mar.)