Opening paragraphs..........................

The island of Nantucket, Massachusetts -- high summer, the western end of the harbor crowded with boats, many tied up at the jetty.  Among them was a scarlet-and-white sportfisherman named Dolphin.  On the flying bridge, a gray-haired man sat at the wheel playing a clarinet, something plaintive and touching.  He was around sixty, a white curling beard giving him the look of an old sailor.
-Jack Higgins,  Rain On The Dead