Crime and the City: Fire Island

Fire Island – a 31-mile-long barrier island off the southern coast of Long Island, New York, famous for its car-free environment, protected natural dunes. And, of course, as a vibrant, historic summer escape for the LGBTQ+ community, most notably in the hamlets of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. Crime novels set on Fire Island invariably offer a mix of sun-drenched beach communities, isolated barrier beach geography, and dark, murderous intrigue. So grab your cooler, suntan lotion and drinking boots and let’s head to the Island…. And we have to run this one in the holidays as pretty much every Fire Island-set novel takes place in the summer sun. 

A case in point being Emma Rosenblum’s Bad Summer People (2024). Beaches, boardwalks, hot sun, tennis, random illicit liaisons among the same rich families have been coming to Fire Island every summer for years. Then a body is found. But is it murder?

More murder among the Lond island wealthy in Adele Griffin’s Be True To Me (2018). Romance and privilege turn nasty within the gates of a Fire Island colony of the super-rich. Jean is privileged, and cruel but also insecure. She’s enamoured of Gil Burke, a handsome newcomer – but there’s other girls circling Gil and what might any of them do to secure his sole attentions? All set against the Bicentennial summer on Fire Island of sunbathing, lobster bakes, and lust. 

Oh my, Fire Island is just one island of summer lust and jealousy it seems! Enjoying a summer together on Fire Island at a beach house besties Maggie, Sage, Zoe, and Nick find their fun in the sun interrupted by murder when Zoe stumbles upon Maggie’s murdered body on the beach in Lynda Curnyn’s Killer Summer (2005).

And then, continuing the Fire Island, summer, lust theme is Julie Ellis’s Fire Island Summer (2006). Psychiatric social worker, Anne Evans is about to head to Fire Island to close up her parents’ house. At an upstate New York prison, Mark Cameron is about to be released. Mark and Anne meet and immediately they are deeply drawn to each other. It’s going to get complicated to say the least. 

The Madonna Ghost (2009) is the third Annie Tillery mystery by Long Island resident Linda Maria Frank.  It follows 17-year-old Annie Tillery and her NYPD detective aunt vacationing on Fire Island. It’s an idyllic beach getaway until auntie goes missing, there’s some rather unpleasant neighbours and a local ghost. 

More ghosts in The Storm Reaper (2026) by Kristen Van Nest: Book 1 of the Dark Beach Mysteries, set in the fictional Whale Watch Point on Fire Island’s eastern stretch. It follows a local police officer who believes a real-life American folklore tale—a ghost that appears before hurricanes—has been adopted by a serial killer who uses hurricanes to cover their tracks.

Assistant New York State Attorney General Marissa Piesman writes the popular Nina Fischman series. Close Quarters is an oldie and goodie from 1995. New York attorney Nina Fischman investigates a murder on Fire Island after she falls for the chief suspect, even though he is from the wrong side of the tracks. There are six Nina Fischman novels in total, mostly taking place in New York with trips to Fire Island as well as the Catskills, as well as up and down Long Island. 

The debut novel from Chelsea G Summers, A Certain Hunger (2022), is a very different kind of Fire Island novel. Indeed it might be easily overlooked were it not recommended by the likes of Crimereads favourites Megan Abbott. Dorothy Daniels has always had a voracious appetite. From her idyllic farm-to-table childhood to the heights of her career as a food critic Dorothy has never been shy about indulging her exquisite tastes – even when it leads to her plunging an ice pick into her lover’s neck. It’s crime, but it’s also social satire. The New York Times critics wrote that it is a ‘love letter to rich food and rich men and gorging on both with abandon.’ I guarantee you will never have read anything quite like it. 

And finally, Fire Island can get weird though still mix up summer, booze, sex appeal and illicit liaisons. James H English’s Escape from Fire Island! (2015) is illustrated throughout by Pamela Hobbs. I’ll let the book’s blurb explain: “It was supposed to be a nice, relaxing weekend—with a little swimming, a lot of cocktails, and more hot bods than a year’s subscription to Men’s Health magazine. But when a vat of radioactive waste washes onto the beach, strange things start happening—and now an army of zombie drag queens is storming the coast! Can you save Fire Island before it’s too late? Or will you perish at the hands of a thousand shrieking divas? It all depends on the choices YOU make.” And by the way if, like me, you’re wondering ‘who is James H English?’ Well he describes himself and it’s perhaps the most Fire Island appropriate author bio ever – “5’11, 32 years old, single, and a resident of Queens, New York. Enjoys hot men, making ice cream, and tormenting the living in new and creative ways.”

So there you have it – sun, sex, jealousy, affairs, murders….a typical Fire Island summer it seems.