The Stolen Coast

Adrift in a sleepy coastal Massachusetts town, a man who ferries fugitives by day gets twisted up in a plot to pilfer diamonds in a heist novel that infuses Elmore Leonard and Casablanca. Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving around people on the run from powerful enemies. Except for the occasional fumble, the family business—co-managed with his father, a retired spy—is smooth sailing, filling up Onset’s holiday homes during the town’s long, drowsy off-season.

But when Elena, Jack’s enigmatic former flame—and former client-fugitive—makes an unexpected return to town, wealthy fiancé in tow, her arrival upends Jack’s routine existence. Elena, after all, doesn’t go anywhere without a scheme in mind, and it isn’t long before Jack finds himself enmeshed in her latest hustle: intercepting millions of dollars’ worth of raw diamonds before they’re shipped overseas.

With sharp wit and stylish prose, CrimeReads editor in chief Dwyer Murphy serves up an irresistible page-turner as full of heart as it is of drama.