It's high summer on Middle Island and there's lots of wildlife out on the lake. But officer Pete Jakes and his boss Chief Halstead aren't looking for swans and geese. As well as policing inebriated boaters and reckless jet skiers. they have to keep sightseers away from nearby South Island where the government is searching for unexploded World War Two weaponry. "Damn the danger," say curious islanders, "we know the government is hiding a spaceship " It's all lots of typical summer fun until the first body turns up. An accidental drowning? Or could there be a connection to a smuggling ring on the lake? When a second death follows, Jakes and Halstead embark on a complicated case, with suspects as devious as the deceptive, concealing coves of the shoreline. Meanwhile, Pete's wife Ali is working with her friends to save an historic lighthouse from demolition. For over a century the old lighthouse was a beacon for travelers. Sailing ships, escaping slaves, bootleggers, pirates, drownings accidental and deliberate, the old tower has seen it all. And the skullduggery isn't over yet, as smuggling takes a modern turn and Ali has her own dark suspicions about the trouble on the lake.