Rebel Island

In the period from 1997 to 2008, Rick Riordan penned seven novels in his Tres Navarre series. The last of the lot is entitled Rebel Island. Here, Jackson "Tres" Navarre and his long-time associate/girlfriend Maia have just gotten married. Over a period of about three years, Tres and Maia have lived through enough murder, mayhem, and high stress escapes, that they have begun to re-evaluate every phase of their lives. To think about their future together and what they really want to do with their lives. This is especially relevant as Maia is nearly full term with their first child. Tres and Maia have decided that now that they have just been married, they will spend some time together at home. They just want to relax and let their accumulated stress dissipate for a while, to find a new quieter equilibrium ... that is when Tres' brother talks them into a honeymoon on an small coastal strip called Rebel Island.

Rebel Island is just large enough to contain one old hotel and a stretch of beach. It was a place where the Navarre family used to come every year for vacation, until one year when Tres' life forever changed when his father and mother decided that they would split up. Since that time, Rebel Island became a place to avoid due to its bad associations. If only Tres had followed his instincts. Instead, shortly after his arrival, a federal marshall who was a guest at the hotel was found murdered. Then a bit later the hotel manager was found bludgeoned to death in the walk-in freezer. If that wasn't bad enough, a hurricane swept over the island tearing apart the hotel and isolating the few guests from the outside world with a killer among them. In the stress, Maia begins to feel contractions coming on. Everywhere Tres looks, he finds people with thin alibis and plenty of motive. Worse yet, he keeps ending up in the crosshairs.

Definitely a thrilling tale that pulled me in and kept me turning the pages. Now that I am done with this series, I feel a bit of melancholy. I was so enjoying the stories and had felt a personal connection with the lead characters. I just wish that there were more stories in the series so that I wouldn't have to say goodbye. But that just means that the author did exactly what he set out to do. I definitely recommend this series.