Literary Excerpt: "The Beach House"

American thriller writers James Patterson and Peter De Jong teamed up for The Beach House, a modern day murder mystery set in East Hampton, N.Y. Here's an excerpt to give you a lay of the land.

I'm sorry I have to confess, I turned twenty-one yesterday.

Whatever the reason, I'm slaloming through bloated SUVs at ninety miles per hour and I start to think about growing up out here, about being a townie in one of the richest zip codes on earth.

A mile away on the Bluff, I can already see the party lights of the Neubauer compound beaming into the perfect East End night, and I experience that juiced-up feeling of anticipation I always get at the beginning of another Hamptons summer. The air itself, carrying a salty whiff of high tide and sweet hyacinth, is ripe with possibility. A sentry in a white suit gives me a toothy grin and waves me through the cast-iron gates.

I wish I could tell you that the whole place was kind of tacky and crass and overreaching, but in fact it's quite understated. Every once in a while, the rich will confuse you that way. It's the kind of parcel that, as real estate brokers put it, comes on the market every couple of decades — twelve beautifully landscaped acres full of hedges and hidden gardens sloping to a pristine, white sand beach.

This entry is excerpted from The Beach House, by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge.