Interesting read. ( )

I heard a review of “High Season” months ago on NPR, so when searching for a fun summer read I picked up a copy. It is indeed “a fun summer read,” with great characters and a marvelously vivid portrait of Provincetown – a summer vacation spot at the very tip of Cape Cod.

“High Season” is a mystery of course. But at its heart it is the story of a place. The tension between the year-rounders who are being priced out of their family homes and driven to the brink by tourists and the summer residents who turn the town into a three-month-long traffic snarl and systematically erase the peace and traditions of the harbor where the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact in 1620.

Loomis’s writing is jaunty, entertaining, and as refreshing as an evening breeze off the Atlantic Ocean. The action never flags, and the outlandish doings of the gay community (for whom P-Town is a summer mecca), rich out-of-towners, and thick-headed vacationing retirees with their “big butts and elastic waistbands” are served up with relish. Frank Coffin is an appealing protagonist, a former Homicide Detective who worked for years in Baltimore until the brutality of pointless murders drove him to return to his Cape Cod hometown -- where the worst crimes include bicycle theft and the occasional break in.

The great flaw of High Season is the plot. It feels as though Loomis didn’t know himself “who done it” until he had almost finished the book and was at last forced to produce a killer. If you’re a fan of a well-crafted mystery, this will drive you nuts. That said, all the other elements of the novel are enough fun to make up for the not infrequent clichés and wayward plot line. I understand Loomis has written more mysteries to follow Frank Coffin’s High Season debut and I intend to pick those up next time I’m looking for a little light reading. ( )

High Season does a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of Provincetown from a native's view. The mystery is ok, characters engaging, if sometimes stereotyped. Great beach book- I'll watch for more from this author. ( )

Detective Frank Coffin sets out to investigate a series of deaths in Provincetown. While the basic plot is well-developed and interesting, my enjoyment was marred by the overuse of bad language. The "F" word seemed to be the only adjective in use by some of the characters, creating a rather tiresome dialogue. The author seemed to go out of his way to include the homosexual element of the town in ways that were probably offesnive to both gay and Evangelical readers. I doubt that any future Jon Loomis novels will be in my "to be read" pile. ( )