Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding

February 4, 2013
At the start of Agatha-finalist Wait’s so-so sixth Antique Print mystery (after 2011’s Shadows of a Down East Summer), Maggie Summer spots a man’s body on a beach on Massachusetts’s Cape Cod and dials 911. The local police chief, Ike Iron, who responds, identifies the man as Dan Jeffrey, a nasty drunk who was alienated from his grown daughter. Ike, who suspects Dan drowned, orders an inquest. Meanwhile, Maggie helps prepare for the wedding, just a week away, of her disabled friend, Gussie White, the ever-cheerful owner of the antique shop Aunt Augusta’s Attic. Amid what turns into a plodding homicide investigation, Maggie must contend with a number of social issues, such as the groom’s decision to invite a guest with Down’s syndrome and her desire to adopt a baby girl against her boyfriend’s wishes. A second murder and a looming hurricane inject some suspense into what is otherwise a routine cozy.