Local captain Skip Marsden was killed by a harpoon in his chest, with his dinghy on a beach with 11 miles from where his yacht, which a spoiled young viscount soon to be married hired, moored at sea by a buoy. Also on board are his three equally drunken stag party guests from prestigious English college, two fellow upper class and a self-made lawyer. Parker wonders how Marsden ended up on the beach when his dinghy was inoperable and GPS confirmed his boat had never moved. Marsden also had hairs in his throat from his dog, which died two months ago. The discovery that Marsden was smuggling cocaine in a secret compartment aboard, using the fixed buoy as a drug drop, complicates the crime further as a fifth person was interested in the whereabouts of the drugs. Parker thoroughly vets the party boys, finding romantic and financial potential motives, until it all ties up with the smuggling.
—KGF Vissers