Review: I stayed up until 1:30 AM to finish this one.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 6, 2014
One way to characterize Josh’s latest mystery is “Lanyon Invades Locust Valley.”That’s to say that “Stranger on the Shore” is among other things an homage to Fitzgerald’s lyrical masterpiece “The Great Gatsby.” In both stories a naive outsider from the midwest becomes ensnared in the schemes of the insanely wealthy on the North Shore of Long Island: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” And as always, Josh provides a wealth of cultural context: music and TV references, architecture and more. For example, how many of you know what a seralian window is? I didn’t. Hint: Sebastiano Seralio.But those are only a few of the many incidental pleasures of Josh’s latest mystery.Here he presents us with an intriguing puzzle from the past.  The clean-cut young protagonist from Wisconsin is commissioned by a wealthy old man to write a book about the unsolved kidnapping of the man’s grandson twenty years earlier. Naturally, the more he pokes around, the more dangerous it becomes for him. And yes, there’s a mister tall, dark and forbidding (forbidding just at first, of course). I’ll say no more about the plot and it’s suspenseful twists. If you’re not already a Lanyon fan but appreciate superb writing, even if it keeps you up until the wee hours, you won’t go wrong with “Stranger on the Shore.”