Michael Ledwidge proved his writing chops as the co-author of the Detective Michael Bennett series with James Patterson. His talent makes his latest solo effort, BEACH WEDDING, work as an action-filled murder mystery that is engaging because of the connections we feel to the characters.

The Rourkes are a working class family living it up in the Hamptons for a month. Tom, a hedge fund manager, is getting married. He rents a huge mansion on the beach in an effort to impress his bride's very proper British family, treat his loved ones to some luxury, and thumb his nose at the residents of this ultra-snobby street. These people looked down on him and his family when they were growing up as townies. Living in the mansion becomes the impetus for his brother Terry, a cop, to investigate a crime that occurred in the neighborhood when he was a teenager.

"[W]hat we don't expect is the final plot twist that upends everything we --- and Terry --- thought was fact. It's a very satisfying read, one that will have you turning pages and actually caring about the outcome."

As a senior in high school, Terry is asked to help bartend for a huge 4th of July party hosted by the wealthy Noah Sutton at his lavish Hampton estate. He jumps at the chance to be in the company of the rich and famous, and is thrilled to see his favorite author there. But the next morning, Sutton is dead, shot twice in the head. His wife, Hailey, is nowhere to be found.

Terry's father, the local Assistant District Attorney, prosecutes the young widow for her husband’s murder. We learn early on that money will buy anything, especially in the Hamptons. The evidence against Hailey mysteriously disappears from the police station, resulting in a mistrial. Terry’s father dies in an apparent boating accident before a decision is made regarding a new trial. Decades later, Hailey still has the same mansion, and the local cops are still very much in the pocket of the Suttons.

Terry now learns that the current District Attorney and the chief of the county police department are as crooked as can be. And by virtue of being at this fabulous beach estate, he accidentally finds an unfinished manuscript by the same bestselling writer who had attended that long-ago party, leading him to a treasure trove of information about the murder. There are people who do not want the truth uncovered, and they will stop at nothing to make sure that it all stays buried. Terry finds out hard truths about what really happened all those years ago resulting in Sutton's murder and its violent aftermath.

The action fills the pages even as we get to witness Terry’s relationship with his extended Irish family, including his brothers, his mother, his pregnant wife of six months and his young daughter. They are all shunned after the death of his father. One brother's life is irreparably harmed when he is unable to get a recommendation letter from their local congressman (or anyone else), which would have enabled him to attend West Point. Jobs they had worked weekends and summers are suddenly filled. People now ignore them.

Will Terry find out the truth before the truth does him in? Because BEACH WEDDING is not a profoundly disturbing or thought-provoking literary piece, but simply an enjoyable and engaging novel about a hard-boiled cop and a decades-old murder mystery, we know that he will live to the end. But what we don't expect is the final plot twist that upends everything we --- and Terry --- thought was fact. It's a very satisfying read, one that will have you turning pages and actually caring about the outcome.