You know you read an excellent book when you want to read the rest of the series and think about buying it.
It's easy to compare this story to Death In Paradise but I think they only share the tropical setting and this is a more complex series.
I had a lot of fun in reading this story and the twists made me keep turning pages.
Great characters, setting and storytelling.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Palms,paradise, poison by John Keyse-Walker.
A Teddy Creque mystery #3.
Constable Teddy Creque, the sole police officer on the tiny, sun-soaked island of Anegada, is used to weathering storms. So when Hurricane Leatha hits the Caribbean with brutal force, his main concern is keeping the island's two hundred residents safe.
This was a fun majestic read. I did enjoy this. It was different. I loved Teddy character. How he was. I hope there is more to come. 4*.

I was looking forward to meeting Constable Teddy Creque again, and he did not disappoint. One of the things I've enjoyed about this series is its depiction of the life and culture of a small island in the British Virgin Islands. In Palms, Paradise, Poison, I learned how ancient beliefs are a part of this life and how they can be twisted in the wrong person's hands.

This third book in the series has some gorgeous descriptions of the landscape and wildlife on Caribbean islands, and I loved learning about Cayo Saetia, Fidel Castro's favorite little island off the coast of Cuba. The hurricane scenes are powerful and kept me on tenterhooks throughout the beginning of the book. (After reading Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope mysteries and now Keyse-Walker's Teddy Creque books, I'm convinced I need to trade in my Jeep for an old Land Rover.)

Teddy gets to go on a road trip with Cuban police officer Luz Garcia, and their eventual capture of Queen Ya-Ya does not go smoothly. As interesting as this all is, Palms, Paradise, Poison is also a story of a man reinventing his life after the death of his wife. Teddy Creque wasn't a very admirable man at the beginning of the series, and his wife's death threw him into a downward spiral of depression and alcohol. Now he's met the right woman, and they and their blended family of three children are happy... but is Teddy as reformed as he thinks he is? If temptation arises, will he be able to resist?

I enjoyed this book, the hurricane, the travels through Cuba, the apprehension of Queen Ya-Ya, and seeing what Teddy's done with his life since the second book, Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed. Now I'm eager to find out what's next for this constable on a small Caribbean island. Bring it on.

What an interesting read this is! While you might pick this up because it reminds you a bit of Death in Paradise know that it's quite different. It's the Virgin Islands and Constable Teddy Creque has a mess on his hands- not only a hurricane but also the disappearance of Queen Ya-Ya, an accused murderer and practionner of Santeria. Did she killed Kevin Faulkner? How did she escape the jail? Well, she escaped all right- to Cuba- and that's where Teddy meets Luz Garcia of the Cuban police. Know that there's animal sacrifice, a bit of the paranormal, and a pretty darn good mystery. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I missed the first. books so this was a standalone but I'm going to look for more with Teddy,

Teddy Creque is the police presence on the small island of Anegada, which is part of the Tortolla controlled Royal British Virgin Islands.
A terrific storm batters the island. Teddy risks his life locating a boat piloted by a friend. The friend unfortunately is dead but the boat has a passenger - Marianna Orro aka Queen Ya Ya. She is an escaped convict from the island of Tortola and seems to have supernatural powers. Teddy arrests her and holds her in the local jail, from where she vanishes.
Teddy is asked to visit Cuba where a boat belonging to an influential Anegada citizen has ended up after the storm. He meets the attractive and impressive Subtenienta Luz Garcia who gives him an insight into local life. Teddy is a happilly married man isn't he? He also comes up against once more Queen Ya Ya. Who will prevail?
I've visited Tortola a few times but had not heard of Anegada. The author worked in the Ohio legal system before taking up writing. This is the third book based on the island of Anegada. It made me wish I could travel again to the Caribbean and reminded me of the good times before covid spoilt it.

This is the third book in John Keyse-Walker’s enjoyable Teddy Creque series, set on the fictional island of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. Similar in tone and feel to the TV series Death in Paradise, Keyse-Walker’s main character is not an imported British superintendent, but an island born constable, risen to the top of the heap in tiny Anegada. He’s also a fisherman, and his community plays a huge part in the story.

While the first book in the series was a traditional police procedural story with the added zing of the Caribbean setting, this one is a stripped down wonder that embraces the setting completely. The book opens with a hurricane hitting the island (a sadly common occurrence in the Virgin Islands), and Teddy, while trying to evacuate the islanders to safety further inland, goes out to rescue a fellow fisherman who is out in one of the worst storms in island memory.

Combining the feel of the hurricane – I have never lived through one, but I now feel as though I have – with a daring and exciting rescue sequence, the book hits it out of the park from the start. When Teddy improbably gets his boat out to a missing one, he finds the skipper dead and a strange woman aboard. They make their way back to shore and the strange woman, a woman named Queen Ya-Ya, turns out to be an escaped prisoner.
Combining the best elements of both the adventure store and the quest – Teddy ends up following another lost boat as well as Queen Ya-Ya to Cuba (and the sequence of events that gets both of them there I leave to you, lucky reader, to discover for yourself). On top of these elements, he places the absolutely unforgettable character of Queen Ya-Ya, whose dastardly deeds are almost discovered by the reader in real time, just as Teddy himself discovers them.

The other major character is a Cuban detective, Luz, who practices the “good” version of Santeria, while Ya-Ya practices the more ominous side. Teddy’s unwillingness to believe either in Luz’s version of faith or in Ya Ya’s version gets him into some trouble and leaves the reader, in the end, wondering about what to believe themselves.

This was a skillfully told, suspenseful tale, saturated in atmosphere and setting, and full of the glories as well as the harsh realities of life in the Caribbean. Somehow living on a beach seems romantic, but you can still starve to death on a beach and Keyse-Walker illuminates that possibility. This is a beautifully vivid and hard to forget book.

Home Turf Investigation…
Book three in the Teddy Creque mystery series finds the Constable with a new investigation on his Caribbean home turf. With much atmosphere, credible and often delightful but certainly enigmatic characters and a swift pen the author creates a wholly immersive, entertaining and intriguing mystery. A worthy addition to this enjoyable series.

This is a fun tropical mystery. Constable Teddy Creque is a man of reality and facts, a good natured fellow who lives a low-key life. When a mysterious priestess who practices alleged "dark arts" enters his life he is skeptical, then suspicious... And finally very, very cautious.

I won't give up the plot. Suffice to say Constable Creque has to leave his beloved island and embark on an adventure full of mystery, intrigue, danger, and possibly black magic. This is a fun, fast moving story; because it drops the reader right into the action it took me a little bit to acclimate myself to what was going on but after the first few pages it was easy to get into the flow of it.

Palms, Paradise, Poison might offend readers who are extremely sensitive to language. There is one character who cusses a blue streak full of F-bombs but only appears a couple of times and each appearance is fairly brief. The language really exemplifies the nature of the character in a way that tends more towards startling than offensive. Full disclosure: Strong language rarely offends me at all so that's a consideration -- but really, I mention it just so it won't come as a total shock.

I liked this book a lot. I would recommend it to any reader who enjoys a more "lighthearted" mystery that is fun without being saccharine sweet. If you're at all familiar with the Denzel Washington movie The Mighty Quinn or the UK television series Death in Paradise then this book has that kind of sensibility to it.