Big Blow — Preston Pairo

Normally when an Ocean City real estate developer turns up dead, lawyer/one-star-motel owner Dallas Henry is a prime suspect. After all, no one's signed more petitions against building anything other than sand castles along Maryland's already-crowded shoreline than Dallas.And when the dead developer is Reg Waterhouse, add Waterhouse's younger wife, Amanda to the list of those with motive.Fortunately—or maybe not—at the time of Waterhouse's murder, Dallas and Amanda were both in bed—with each other, as chance would have it. (Cross his heart, Dallas didn't know she was married.)Despite these mutual alibis, Police Chief Rupert Dawson isn't convinced of Amanda's innocence and offers to overlook Dallas' ever-growing stack of parking tickets if he'll keep an eye on the business-minded widow.The chief also wants Dallas' help in finding whoever swiped the old artillery gun from the front lawn of the local VFW hall and is using it to fire live rounds at new real estate projects, blowing up bulldozers and otherwise upsetting the mayor.The third book in the Ocean City Mystery Series (following Beach Money and One Dead Judge), Big Blow is a humorous romp along white sand beaches featuring adulterous real estate developers, gin-swigging octogenarian tree huggers, a loony psychiatrist, hundreds of watermelons, a Ferris wheel, a stolen Howitzer, and all of Dallas' helpers who, often times, aren't really helping.