Ex-cop J. W. Jackson's life on Martha's Vineyard is just about perfect--the fish are biting, his beautiful girlfriend has finally agreed to marry him--until he finds the body of a college girl lying in his driveway.

Vineyard wedding bells are about to chime for J.W. Jackson and Zee Madieras. And Zee’s bank account is one hundred thousand unexplained dollars richer, briefly. The bank calls it a glitch, and two days later the windfall has flown. But, coincidentally, the college student lying dead in J.W.’s driveway, done in by a dose of locally grown poison, recently withdrew a hundred grand from her own account. And now, before exchanging vows, J.W. must first match wits with a murderer.

Vineyard wedding bells are about to chime for ex-Boston cop-turned-island-fisherman J.W Jackson and his lady Zee Madieras.

Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison—a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder—unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation and the crime shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Vanity Fair journalist Maximillian Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by some of France's top detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic investigation. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine. Shadows in the Vineyard takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small-town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that runs through it.

It's March on Martha’s Vineyard. Too early for bluefish, but not too early for trouble. The winds are brisk and there’s still a chill coming in off the ocean. The mood is gloomy, and for good reason. Former Olympic fencing champion turned millionaire real estate developer Donald Fox has targeted the island for his newest moneymaking scheme. With land values huge and many longtime residents in possession of fuzzy deeds of sometimes dubious legal value, Fox and his team plan to force people to sell cheap. Give up now or we’ll fight you in court...or worse.

With the arrival of warm weather and good fishing, life should be great for J.W. Jackson and his wife, Zee. Something’s wrong, though. The morning newspaper brings an update on the case of the Headless Horseman, a corpse found six months ago. Such murders are rare on the Vineyard, and J.W. wonders if a killer is wandering free on the island. Something’s wrong at home, too. Zee seems curiously distant. J.W. gets a distraction in the form of Abraham Mahsimba, a mysterious man searching for two ancient soapstone eagles. Mahsimba follows their trail to the Vineyard and enlists J.W.’s help. The search for the eagles pits them against some of the most powerful figures in the Vineyard’s art world, including some who would stop at nothing to add forbidden objects to their collections.