Book 50, 2019

[chez_jae]

The Haunted Beach by Mary Bowers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Last night, I finished reading The Haunted Beach by Mary Bowers, which is the fourth installment in the "Tropical Breeze" mystery series. In another departure from how the series began, this story featured skeptical paranormal investigator Edson Darby-Deaver as the main character, and it was written in third person pov.

Edson's elderly neighbor, Frieda Strawbridge, has passed away, but it seems she has yet to release her grip on her daughter, Dolores. Everyone in the small, gated community thinks Dolores is losing her mind. Her artistic endeavors have grown increasingly dark and bizarre, and she often slips from the house at night to dance on the beach with the ghost of her mother. The twin sisters who clean most of the houses in the community ask Ed to help. He is willing to step in, but there is no way that Edson is calling on his co-star, Terry Force, to assist him. Instead, he calls on his friend, Taylor Verone, and her extraordinary cat, Bastet.

When Dolores is found, dead on the beach, and another woman in the neighborhood goes missing, it's up to Edson, Taylor, and Bastet to get to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately for Ed, Terry gets wind of the purported haunting, and he blows into town with his fiancee and his obnoxious bulldog in tow. Ed is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, dealing with Terry, but that won't stop him from doing what he does best: investigating.

I am really ambivalent about this book. I enjoyed some aspects, but others annoyed me. I am still confounded that the author began the series by writing two books in Taylor's first-person pov, then switched it up. Also, in this one, Taylor came across as a bit...unlikable. Some of what she did and said in the story were quite abrasive. Now, if the reader would have been privy to her thoughts (as in the first two books), we may have known why she behaved the way she did. I didn't like that the reader was given no chance to solve the mystery. I also didn't like that the pov skipped around quite a bit, rather than sticking to Edson. He, however, made the book interesting.

Favorite lines
♦ "You think it's a barrel of laughs when it's somebody else's gibbering revenant, but when it's your own former neighbor, it's 'Not in my backyard.'"
♦ "That's the hell of being a writer. You can imagine anything."

If I could give this 3 1/2 stars, I would. Hm. Guess I'll go with 4.