Andy Roark, the hero of Peter Colt’s The Off-Islander, is a Boston private eye with a middling business and a drinking problem. He suffers from the after-effects of combat in Vietnam (this story is set in 1982), and from regrets following a break-up with his girlfriend. He grew up in the depressed Southie section of town, and his best childhood friend is Danny Sullivan, now a lawyer who works for the mob, but who dreams of respectability.

Danny hires Andy to do an investigation for a beautiful, rich woman whose husband has political aspirations. Her father disappeared when she was a girl, she tells them, and she’s worried he might have gotten involved in something since that time that would cause a scandal. They’ve already paid the Pinkerton Agency to run down leads on the West Coast, without any luck. They want Andy to check out the East Coast. Andy visits an address the man used in Hyannis, which leads him to a property on Nantucket Island. There the clues he follows will lead him to layers of lies and a violent challenge that will suddenly transform his greatest handicap – his PTSD – into the strength he needs to survive a threat unlike any he’s faced since the war.

I wasn’t sure at first whether I liked Andy Roark as a hero. His first-person narration is intentionally reminiscent of Philip Marlowe in a Chandler novel, though author Colt isn’t as lyrical a writer (and for some reason he often avoids contractions in dialogue). Often Andy seemed self-sabotaging, which was annoying, and there were a couple instances of casual marijuana use, which always annoys me in a character. However, the pot leads to nothing good, and I really appreciated the power of the final, dramatic denouement. The book ended very strong, leaving an extremely good impression on this reader. I think I’m going to read the next book in the series.

Recommended, for adults.