Good morning –
I’m Maggie Mullaley. I’m the charter boat chef and first mate for Andiamo, a real beauty of a sailboat. Right now, I’m sitting in her cockpit, sipping my coffee as dawn breaks over Admiralty Bay. One of my favorite moments of the day. The sky streaking pink and gold as the boat swings gently on her anchor chain.
Until a year ago, I was a lawyer in a fancy Chicago firm, wearing $800 suits instead of shorts and t-shirts, before the life I thought I wanted fell to pieces in sorrow and regret. When I washed up on the shores of Bequia, part of the remote St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands in the southern Caribbean, I was just hoping to regain my footing.
Miss Ollivierre, the seventy-year-old owner of the Island Bookstore, found me and folded me into her collection of strays. Put me to work tutoring little girls in her reading club.
Same thing with Henry and Darthea who run De Surf, the bar and café on the beach in Lower Bay where I rented my bungalow. They never seemed to care that I kept postponing my departure. After some painful, solitary months, I started tending bar and they started treating me like a regular, pretending not to notice my fragile moments.
I think they were all rooting for me to crew for Jake, the captain of Andiamo. They could tell all I wanted was to be at sea. Jake’s a lovely guy, full of good spirits and good stories. But, with the proverbial girl in every port, maybe not my best timing.
Still, the sea was calling…
At first, I kept my lawyering days to myself. But when Jake got accused of murder, and I turned out to be the only lawyer on Bequia, what could I do?
Now, a few days a month, when we don’t have a charter, I see clients at my new “office,” a rickety table under the old frangipani tree in the garden behind Miss Ollivierre’s bookstore. That’s where I was when Solange, one of my tougher clients, told me she was going to start shooting pineapple thieves the next time they intruded on her farm.
The farmers in her valley are under huge pressure from a mega fruit conglomerate that’s set its sights on tiny St. Vincent. Nothing makes sense about what they’re doing here. Solange thinks the stealing is part of their campaign of dirty tricks against the locals to force them to sell out. Dark secrets have begun surfacing from their past revealing an environmental and human horror show.
Suddenly, my phone interrupts the tranquil morning. Solange. But the call drops. Cell reception between the islands is terrible and her farm is across the wide, turbulent Bequia Channel. The phone rings again. The same.
Oh no, not now… Six passengers are still quietly sleeping below-decks as Jake prepares to raise the sails. But, echoing in my ears is Solange’s threat to start shooting pineapple thieves.
A COFFIN FULL OF PINEAPPLES
Series Name: A Caribbean Island Murder Mystery, Book 2
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: March 2026
Format: Print, Digital
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Independent Bookstores
The remote Grenadine islands— sailing paradise of the southern Caribbean. Home of Maggie and Jake’s popular little charter boat company and, now… murder.
After prevailing in A TURQUOISE GRAVE, popular heroine Maggie Mullaley is back to take on the Amalgamated Fruit Company when this giant industrial agriculture conglomerate moves in on tiny St. Vincent. Maggie, a part time lawyer on her days off from sailing, gets drawn into the fight of local pineapple farmers to hold onto their land. Dark secrets begin to emerge from the company’s past of environmental degradation and human catastrophe. Secrets they will go to any length to keep hidden. Suddenly, Maggie’s client Solange, a feisty woman farmer with secrets of her own, is in their cross hairs, and Maggie is sailing a hard race against time, to expose the truth before it’s too late.
Meet the author
After 40 years working in the theater as an actor, director, and playwright, Hilary Cohen has broken new ground for herself with a pair of sailboat mysteries set in the remote Grenadine Islands of the southern Caribbean. A passionate sailor with an abiding love for these tiny, wind-swept islands, as well as a devoted reader of mysteries, she became filled with the idea of bringing them to life through the sailing adventures of her young heroine, a somewhat-reluctant detective, plucky, vulnerable, a soft spot for clients of simple means, dedicated to social justice. Hilary lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and sails frequently in the Grenadines. As well as her mystery series, she has begun creating and posting a set of interviews entitled “Women’s Voices of the Grenadines.” You can learn more about her at her website: www.hilaryucohen.com.