White Shark

by Ross Gresham

Every summer, the vacation island of Nausset hires a temporary cop for the rush of tourists. This time they drew a wild card. Jim Hawkins, the "Parking Warden," stumbles upon the bizarre Viking suicide of a local property developer.
The incident makes no ripple in the summer insanity of Nausset, the most fashionable beach property in the world. Fading aristocrats sit up all night at the windows of their wooden castles, while endless, drunken tourists stream by below. The ferries run day and night. Land prices creep higher--like the thermometer--and always the drinks are served by blank-faced foreigners counting the days on their work permits.
One of these workers has disappeared. The local police know how the island works. They know who matters and who doesn't, and let it all pass with a wink and a free ice cream. But not Jim Hawkins. Hawkins may be the worst cop ever to put on a uniform, and he may not care about drunks or land deals, but after his tour in the Army, he is done letting people be hurt. There's a dead man on fire, a local beauty dead from what seems to be a vicious shark attack, and a Ukrainian girl who has come to the island to find her wild sister.
White Shark is a darkly-funny thriller set in a corrupt vacation world where sometimes the only way to cut through the B.S. is to leave a ton of D.S. on the floor.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 18, 2016

Reviews

[Jessy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Once I ordered a Diet Coke, and then I realized they had Coke Zero. I said, "Oh!"

p.s., this review is taken from a review of our local movie theater. I am married to Ross Gresham so it's not like I can write an impartial review. But the book is really, really, really good and it will make you laugh and you'll be like, I hope there's a sequel!. And guess what there will be.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received this book free via a drawing by the "Stop You're Killing Me" website. An unusual literary venture. Imagine Carl Hiaasen moving north from Florida to Nantucket to write a novel in collaboration with Stephen King. Developers - including the Town Clerk, a restaurant and bar owner and an-ex-Senator - planning to despoil a wildlife refuge to put up condos and build a golf course and skimming over $8 million from a Preservation Fund funded from a 1/2% Sales Tax. But then there is the white slavery of East European girls, and the sadistic torture, rape and murder of some of them. Several other murders occur, including one of the developers, when Jim takes a hand and their response is to bring in a kill team to take care of him. Some good moments, especially approaching the end, but the swing back and forth from humor to horror was off-putting.

Jim Hawkins is a summer Traffic Warden - read Rent-a-Cop - on fictional Nausset Island, MA. He's there to follow his soon to be ex-girlfriend. He admits to being disliked on sight by a substantial segment of the populace. Jim is ex-Special Forces and his story slowly unfolds via phone call from his ex-NCO. Although there are sharks in the story, the White Shark of the title, turns out to be Jim. As Sgt. Martinez explains when told by fixer Coburn that he has heard Special Forces took out the African prison Anomabu, "Special Forces? It was the White Shark...It was no mission, man...It was him. These maricons pissed him off. And then they were all dead." Although only a summer cop, Jim has ideas of what is right and proceed, through all obstacles, to do it.

[Chris Lott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Hawkins, an everyman with a touch of the superman, recently discharged from the Army under hazy circumstances, just wants to settle in as the seasonal parking warden in the fictional---but I suspect not too fictional---northeastern vacation island of Nausset. Normally this would mean ticketing as many tourists as possible while keeping the rich kids safe so they can be preyed upon by the more and less corrupt businesses. Unfortunately, Hawkins' unwavering integrity thrusts him in the middle of an escalating chain of events from refusing the usual grift to increasingly violent encounters...until he's in the middle of a full-fledged murder mystery involving the richest (and craziest) of the island's aristocracy, a development scheme gone awry, sexual trafficking and a psychotic island's son.

Hawkins, the "white shark" of the title, is an indelible character, endearing in his own way, possessing an enviable internal code of conduct and a sly wit that elevates what could just be another indistinguishable, often unbelievable kind-of-P.I. thriller to something even more. Gresham's prose style has a rhythm that took me a few chapters to settle into, but once I did that style---and his fine eye for creating an evocative setting---suspended any lingering disbelief. White Shark is an entertaining cocktail combining two parts Hiassen, one part Travis McGee and Gresham's own unique style. I'm looking forward to the next round.

[Patricia Zashkoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The characters are interesting and diverse. The location seems like a great place for a summer vacation. It seems nice but it not what it seems. There is a suicide, nosey rich neighbors, endless drunks, endless tourists and a serial bad guy that does terrible things to women. Jim Hawkins is hired for the summer as a Parking Warden but he is ex military and not some one to mess with. He tries to keep the island safe and sometimes he succeeds.