There are no spoilers for the top part of this post – the beginning of this post is only a repeat of the information provided about the book that was provided at the start of the month, before the meeting. But…..
Near the bottom of the page, there is a place for our participants to leave comments about the book, and spoilers will likely be included. Don’t scroll down to the comments area, until you have finished the book.
We read A Beautiful Place to Die by Philip R. Craig for the May 26 Meeting. Published in 1989, it is the first in a series of 22 books featuring Jefferson “J. W.” Jackson, a 30-something ex-Boston cop, on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. A BLURB:
During his career as a cop on the back streets of Boston, Jeff Jackson saw enough of the evil that men do to last a lifetime. So he retired to the serenity of Martha’s Vineyard, to spend his days fishing for blues and wooing a sexy nurse named Zee.
But when a local’s boat mysteriously explodes off the coast, killing an amiable young drifter, Jackson is drawn reluctantly back into the investigative trade. For there’s a serpent loose in paradise – contaminating Jackson’s lovely, peaceful island with its poisonous venom of drugs… and death.
Learn more about Philip R Craig and the book:
- An interesting biography of the author on the website maintained by the author’s family.
- Readers react to his books and 2007 death – in the comments section to this blogpost.
- View a one hour interview with Phil Craig. This interview was conducted in 1997 by the super-fan Barbara Peters of Poisoned Pen Press and Bookstore in Arizona. As a result of the video dating to 1997, it is not high def, and was uploaded by six 10 minute sections. However, as always Barbara is adept at bring out a lot of interesting information about the author, the writing, and how the books came to be.
- NOTE: In 2020 Hallmark produced a movie for its channel based on A Beautiful Place to Die. It might be a fun movie, but the characters look different from the book and a lot of the setting won’t look like the Vineyard (tall pine trees??) since it was filmed in Vancouver with some Vineyard B-Roll mixed in, in an attempt to fool the audience.
Book Scores and Book Reviews
Here are the scores of 15 of us who read the book.
If you were one of those above who read the book, please …
…write your thoughts on the book so we have at least a partial record of views expressed in the group. This is …
(1) for those who did not attend the meeting, and
(2) for those who did attend. Please consider writing some of your thoughts about the book, even if you expressed them in the meeting. This helps provide a “report” to those who could not attend.
Please write your book reactions and score where it says “LEAVE A REPLY,” below. You can also [nicely] comment on any other participant’s thoughts.
I enjoyed Philip Craig’s character of JW. he was engaging and I felt the plot was easy to follow. despite all the other characters involved the story flowed well.m life on Martha’s Vineyard was realistic and fun. my score was81.
As I said ‘at the meeting’ ~ this was a delicious ‘Orange’ to read ~ Used that analogy because this first book of Phil Craig’s was not of the caliber of Parker or Connelly (apples) but it was still a good read. Will read more books by Craig.
Lots of characters to set the ‘cultural tone’ for the population of the ‘island’ ~ plus the ‘drug’ culture that was present on the island and the 2nd plot of Jim Norris being the ‘love child’ of George Martin and setting off reactions from Billy Martin his current son (into drugs) and his sister being in love with Jim Norris ~ and then there is another plot with Fred Sylvia ~ ‘drug lord’ and his wife Maria who likes young men and uses ‘free drugs’ to attract the young men. And so it goes ~ Good base for future books ~
Craig did a great job with the setting and creating the sense of ‘A Beautiful Place to Die’ ~ (despite all the people problems of the island) Craig used the setting of the island well (living near the ocean in a simple abode, watching sunsets, fishing the waters, smoking and sharing the fish in different recipes with Zee ~
The humor was subtle and fun ~ Great literary quotes too
e.g.
‘to treat myself like a guest, Today my guest got
ham and cheese sandwiches and ‘deli-style half.
sour pickles..
talking to the blue fish:
‘Usually they arrived in May, but here it was early June and they were still on vacation. Had they
no sense of duty.’
…’placed it in front of me. She smiled. She was happy. I smiled back. Librarians are all right.’
Balzac quote : ‘once again to the effect that behind every great fortune lies a great crime. That sort of thing’ ~
I stopped taking notes because I was enjoying the book so much ~ But you get the idea right?
Thanks to Leslie for the list of characters and Dick for the map ~ great resources.