Lyric first novel goes beyond genre

Bookstore shelves tend to divide the vast world of reading into hard and fast categories: literary fiction over there, never touching the history books. Nature narratives separate from the love stories; creative nonfiction titles uneasy shelf-neighbors with mystery-thriller tomes. In this world of clearly (and often falsely) defined genres, “Amagansett,” a remarkable first novel by London screenwriter Mark Mills (“The Reckoning”), will give bookstore managers conniptions, trying to decide where best it belongs.

The book opens in 1947 when the body of a beautiful New York socialite is caught in the net of Amagansett local Conrad Labarde, an immigrant Basque fisherman emotionally scarred by his heroic involvement as a U.S. solider in World War II. The death distresses the community at large, but no one suspects foul play. Lillian Wallace was known to go for evening swims and simply must have drowned, overcome by the competing currents plaguing the Long Island coast.

Conrad, though, knows more about Lillian and her habits than anyone supposes and realizes something’s amiss. Tom Hollis, the local deputy police chief sent to recover the body, also has questions. A former New York City investigator whose reputation had been wrongly sullied, Hollis is looking for a clean start in Amagansett and the opportunity to prove his mettle. The woman, he notes, had been wearing good pearl earrings. Who goes for an ocean swim sporting fine jewelry? Solving the mystery of Lillian’s drowning may be his shot at redemption.

In parallel story lines, readers follow both men’s quiet investigations into the death as each uncovers tangled strands in a web of power and greed. A larger historical drama, meanwhile, is taking place in the background: The small fishing villages along the coast are pitted against the money and influence of big-city visitors. The Hamptons as a summer playground for the wealthy and well-connected begin to dominate, and so begins disintegration of the quaint and beloved fishing communities.

Written with all the wit, lyric language and slow character development one would search for in the literary fiction department, the book is as rich in time frame and location as any you’d find in the best historical fiction. “Amagansett” is filled as well with a seaman’s devotion to the deep -- and intricate knowledge of its ways.

“The surface of the ocean was churning with life. And death,” Mills writes of Conrad observing a fishing frenzy, invoking with grace the power of the natural world. “Gannets and gulls swooped and slammed onto the water from above, snapping up sparkling baitfish, while hundreds of frenzied school tuna flashed to and fro, their distinctive sickle fins scything through the chop.... It was as if two invisible hands had corralled all living creatures from the surrounding waters into five acres of ocean and ordered them to fight it out among themselves.”

At the core of the tale is a stalwart but quiet romance, around which the possible murder revolves. If all this makes the book sound like a mishmash of genres, a narrative trying to be something for everyone, it’s not. “Amagansett” is simply solid writing, a novel that makes the most of its rich material, told by a remarkable voice. To the author’s credit, the whodunit element is not what makes the pages fly by. Rather, it is the unfolding of the tale itself, the lush writing, the accretion of character and historical details. Like a powerful undertow, Mills’ tale gently yet persistently pulls readers in.