by Elizabeth Winthrop
Beach book of the week
It's about 12 miles long and three miles wide, but what the unnamed New England island at the heart of Elizabeth Winthrop's evocative new novel lacks in size it more than makes up for with intrigue. Sheriff Al Craven is a money-obsessed neurotic who bullies his family and rips off his construction company clients. His wife, Anna, is slowly falling for the town's new doctor, Dennis Lacey (who has a wife of his own back on the mainland), while the doc's nurse Lauren Root seems intent on sleeping with every man on the island.
No surprise, then, that when antique furniture conservator Maggie Hammond inherits an oceanfront home there, she is quickly drawn into the lives of her neighbors. And thanks to richly drawn characters and Winthrop's talent for suspenseful storytelling, the reader can't help but succumb to the undertow. (Morrow, $25)
Bottom Line: Sea-bound Peyton Place
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