I love New Jersey. Seriously. Take Route 3 through Clifton and on
the west side of the highway there's a great diner called The Tick
Tock, which is impossible to pass up. Take the Garden State Parkway
south to Red Bank and drive through downtown; you'll travel blocks
without seeing a chain store. I even love Newark and Orange and
Atlantic City. And Jersey women? They all come from heaven. And
even though I'm not a beach guy, there's nothing like the Jersey
coast --- with the resort towns, the vacationers, and the cotton
candy. As Chris Grabenstein points out in his impressive debut
novel, there are also amusement parks, with all of the usual
amenities --- including, most importantly, the Tilt-A-Whirl.

The narrator of TILT A WHIRL is Danny Boyle, a part-time Sea Haven
summer cop who patrols during the day and parties at night. Boyle
is partnered with John Ceepak, a newly-minted officer who has just
returned from MP duty in Iraq. Ceepak is all right angles, a
natural leader who leads by quiet example and who appears to be in
need of some R & R following his war experiences. Some quiet
duty in a summer resort town would seem to be just what the doctor
ordered --- until billionaire real estate mogul Reggie Hart is
gunned down on the Tilt-A-Whirl at an amusement park early on a
Sunday morning. The only witness is Ashley, the victim's daughter,
who is discovered stumbling, in shock, down the Sea Haven main
drag.

The murderer is identified as a vagrant drug addict who is
well-known to the Sea Haven Police Department but who has seemingly
dropped out of sight --- at least until Ashley is kidnapped. The
police receive a ransom note, putting Ceepak and Boyle in a race
against time to find both Ashley and her kidnapper.

There is much more involved here, however, than there would seem to
be at first blush. Ceepak has a finely honed instinct for solving
crimes, and there are several elements of the murder and kidnapping
that don't sit quite right with him. Boyle's narration is mostly
about Ceepak, and the reader gets a view of him through Boyle's
eyes, which is up close and personal --- a comparison to Watson and
Holmes wouldn't be inaccurate or unfair to any of the parties ---
without being fawning. Ceepak isn't a genius and makes a number of
mistakes along his investigative way, but he is able to doggedly
regroup and renew his pursuit of the murderer and kidnapper.

TILT A WHIRL takes the reader down a number of paths. While there
are elements of humor along the way, this is ultimately a very dark
journey, one that is played out in the shadows rather than the
sun.

Grabenstein has hit upon a winning combination with Ceepak and
Boyle, and the Sea Haven setting. While superficially cheerful and
idyllic, it has just enough hints of hidden but deep-seated
corruption and vice to provide for a motivation for further
crime-ridden visits. We'll most definitely look forward to
them.