Continuing H. Terrell Griffin’s Matt Royal mystery series, we come to number three, Blood Island. This one was a bit of a disappointment, in this reader’s view.

Matt Royal, you may recall, is a retired lawyer living on Longboat Key, near Sarasota, Florida. He is also a former Green Beret who keeps his skills up – which is handy because people keep trying to kill him for one reason or another.

In Blood Island, Matt gets a call from his ex-wife Laura. She left him with good reason years ago, when he went through a self-destructive period that might have pulled them both down. She’s remarried, but they still care for each other. She has a stepdaughter named Peggy, who has disappeared unaccountably. Matt is happy to help her out, and starts hunting for her, assisted by his friend Logan Hamilton.

It all leads to a big terrorist plot, originating with a delusional Christian evangelist who runs a string of brothels (!). I was disappointed with that plot element, though it was made clear that this guy was crazy and not representative of evangelicals generally.

My other main problem with Blood Island was plausibility. Author Griffin works hard to keep stuff moving fast, but it didn’t move fast enough this time out to overcome my skepticism. If a civilian tips a bunch of law enforcement agencies off to a terrorist plot, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t all agree to put the civilian in charge of their operation, even if he’s a former Green Beret with a superspy buddy.

There’s a tragic subplot which worked fairly well, but not well enough to sell the overall plot to me.

However, I’m not disillusioned with the series yet. I’ll give it another chance.