Rating: 
Summary: Shades of Spenser
Review: Philip Craig's "Vineyard Shadows" is a pleasant piece of summer reading for mystery lovers. His protagonist, J W Jackson is a retired Boston cop who has moved to Martha's Vineyard to fish and raise a family. But trouble follows him.Two Boston hoods threaten and assault JW's wife and daughter while he is off clamming. They are looking for the husband of a woman to whom JW was once married. It is their bad luck that Zee, JW's present wife is packing. She was preparing to leave for the pistol range where she shoots competitively when they arrive. Soon after, the man the hoods were looking for turns up on JW's doorstep seeking asylum. JW decides he must find out what is going on in order to protect his own family and lend a helping hand to his ex-wife. JW Jackson strikes me as a funnier, less pompous, domesticated relative of Robert Parker's Spenser. He confronts the kingpin of the Charlston Irish Mafia, as Spenser would. He milks old friends in law enforcement for information. Judged by the length of time it takes him to solve the central puzzle in the story, JW isn't as smart as Spenser -- or the average reader, for that matter. But then he doesn't have a sidekick like Hawk.
Rating: 
Summary: Annoyingly stupid parenting in
Review: This installment of the J. W. Jackson and family adventure continues the slow degradation of this series and provides another disappointing read. The plot is weak, the action limited, and the toddler age children talk like adults. The whole combination makes for a disjointed novel that is not at all close to an average read.
Years ago (and many novels ago) J. W. was a cop on the mean streets of Boston. He was shot in the stomach and the bullet nestled itself against his spine a hairs breath away from permanent paralysis. During the gun battle, he managed to shoot and kill the female thief that had shot him. The resulting trauma of the shooting, caused him to take his pension and disability benefits and move to the tranquility of Martha's Vineyard. There he was able to find peace and solitude as a year around resident. He eventually met and married Zee, a nurse at the local hospital. By the time this novel opens, they have two toddler age children, Joshua and Diana who do not act or talk like real children in any sense of reality.
As this novel opens, J. W. and Joshua went off clamming while Zee got ready to take the younger child, Diana, to the local gun club so that Zee could practice her shooting. As a healer, she is conflicted about the competitive target shooting, but has slowly discovered that she likes it and is quite good at it. Those skills come in quite handy when strangers appear at the house. After asking repeatedly for someone Zee does not know, violence erupts. To save her child's life as well as her own, Zee kills one assailant and seriously wounds the other.
J. W. comes home to find his injured wife and daughter being loaded into an ambulance in a front yard full of police and chaos. There is a good reason why Zee never recognized the name of the man the men were looking for but J. W. knows of him. Tom Rimini is the schoolteacher J. W.'s wife left him for after he was gunned down. She could not handle the life of a policeman's wife and wanted someone safer and more stable. They clicked and after the shooting, Carla made sure J. W. was physically okay and then announced she wanted out.
The only person that could have sent Tom to J. W. would be Carla. Soon, Rimini contacts him and spins a story about gambling debts, the mob, and a cop seeking a conviction against a powerful mob figure. It has been fifteen years since J. W. last saw Carla, but he still has strong feelings for her and he agrees to do what he can to help Tom. Of course, Zee is less than thrilled with this arrangement and it strains their relationship a little more, but she has learned that J. W. will do what he feels right.
Unfortunately, this novel sounds better on paper than it actually is. This latest effort continues the weaker plots, less action, and unrealistic kids of the last several novels. Joshua and Diana are portrayed as miniature adults in action and dialogue and for any parent; it simply does not ring true. Kids just don't act this way and with the kids being a large focus of the last several novels, the books are weakened considerably. As in the last several, J.W. takes his kids to crime scenes and other places that no rational parent would. My suggestion would be to skip this one and start with the beginning ones and work your way forward. You will know when to stop.
(...)
Rating: 
Summary: Good light fiction
Review: While not great literature, this novel is a very readable mystery. It is recommended for a long airline flight, relaxing at the beach, or a rainy evening at home. It is mystery No. 12 in the Vineyard series. While some people prefer to read the series in order, this one can be read as a stand along book. J.W. Jackson has his past catch up with him when he becomes involved with his ex-wife (after 15 years), her second husband, and the criminals he left behind in Boston. J.W. is retired on disability from the Boston P.D. after being shot while on duty. He lives on Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Zee, their two young children, and two cats (but no dog in spite of his children's pleas). His preference for retirement is fishing, claming, occasional boating, and socializing with family and friends. His quiet life is disrupted by intruders from the mainland, in this case his ex-wife's husband and the hard cases looking for him for reasons not entirely clear (the man is not overly truthful about circumstances). Yuppies spending themselves into debt, gambling, drugs, two timing men and women, criminal elements, and J.W.'s old Boston friends all figure into the plot. Two thugs make a bad mistake (fatal for one) when they try to rough up Zee. Zee then gets irked when J.W. tries to help his ex-wife by pulling her husband out of the hole he dug himself into. The plot, as they say, thickens. It takes a major effort by J.W. to restore things to a peaceful retirement. His children acquire some goldfish, but no dog, at least not yet.
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