It's late August, just when thousands of vacationers on beautiful Martha's Vineyard are preparing to go home so the kids can return to school. There's a problem, though. A union has gone on strike, paralyzing the Steamship Authority, which runs the ferries to "America," and creating panic and anger among many tourists and islanders alike.

When an explosion destroys a boat's engine room and kills the striker who apparently planted the bomb, J. W. Jackson, once a Boston cop but now an island man-of-all-work, reluctantly agrees to the widow's pleas that he attempt to prove her husband innocent of the crime. As J.W. begins inquiries, he discovers a complex series of relationships among strikers, scabs, and boat owners, and encounters violence of his own.

Meanwhile, Boston attorney Brady Coyne gets a call from a former client now living full-time on the Vineyard, who tells him about a group of armed men loading and unloading mysterious crates at a dock at midnight. Jackson and Coyne get together and discover that not only are their cases connected but that time is running out for them to prevent a crime that could have international ramifications -- and their only hope will be to confront dedicated killers face-to-face....With its winning contrast of page-turning suspense and evocative Vineyard ambiance, Third Strike is crime fiction at its best.