Mysteries roundup: Novels set near the ocean
BY JAY STRAFFORD
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Published: June 28, 2009
Footprints in the sands of crime Published: June 28, 2009
Summer’s here, and the time is right for reading by the sea. And if your tastes in holidays and fiction run together, each of these mysteries is set at oceanside or near it — in England, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California.
Duplicity and death always play leading roles in British writer Robert Goddard’s distinguished body of work, but doppelgängers? In Goddard’s 19th mystery, Name to a Face (342 pages, Delta, $12), a lookalike has Goddard’s protagonist seeking double — and double-cross.
Tim Harding, who runs a landscape business on the French Riviera, is enlisted by his boss, Barney Tozer, to travel to the oceanside town of Penzance in Cornwall. There, he’s to serve as Tozer’s representative at the auction of the estate of his uncle. Soon after his arrival, Tim meets Hayley Winter, who, he soon learns, is a dead ringer for Kerry Foxton, a reporter who died on a scuba-diving trip with Barney Tozer.
And if that’s not complex enough, Goddard adds an 18th-century shipwreck and the 14th-century Black Death plague as essential elements in what becomes a heady stew of intrigue, secrets and lies as the past intertwines with the present.
Goddard’s prose rarely rises above the acceptable, and his characters do not linger long in the imagination. But, oh, his stories. Intense and intricate, "Name to a Face" is an atmospheric page turner, as shock succeeds shock in this engaging novel.
When the past calls, hang up.
That’s good advice — but advice that Sam Acquillo, who’s afflicted with chronic curiosity, can’t be expected to consider. And in Hard Stop (264 pages, The Permanent Press, $28), the fourth entry in Chris Knopf’s addictive series, answering the call leads Sam — former New York City corporate whiz, current Long Island carpenter — into life-threatening danger.
When Sam is summoned by George Donovan, chairman of the corporation that drummed him out, he’s repelled but intrigued. Donovan wants him to locate his girlfriend, consultant Iku Kinjo; in return, Donovan will amend Sam’s severance deal so that he can reap the fruits of intellectual property.
Sam agrees — he wants the money — and starts the search, a journey that ends with him discovering Iku’s body, a knife in her head. That should seal the deal — Donovan put no condition on finding her alive — but Sam’s an inquisitive cuss and sets out to find the killer. It’s not long until he finds himself confronting the "uncontrollable forces set loose on the world by the usual concoction of ardor, cupidity, ego and fear" — not to mention mayhem.
In an era of unconscionable bonuses and greed, "Hard Stop" is timely entertainment — enhanced by Knopf’s command of the language and his portrayals of the flawed but likable, tough but honorable Sam — as well as his girlfriend, his lawyer and his lovable mutt. Whether you’re in the Hamptons or the Outer Banks, "Hard Stop" is the perfect beach read, a thriller that rings with emotional honesty.
Pairing cops of vastly different personalities is nothing new, but Chris Grabenstein continues to make the device work in Mind Scrambler (352 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.95), the fifth in his series featuring Sea Haven, N.J., officers John Ceepak and Danny Boyle.
This time out, Ceepak — a straight-arrow Iraq veteran — and Boyle — a wisecracking 25-year-old — have traveled down the Jersey Shore to Atlantic City to take a deposition in a murder case. Not long after their arrival, Boyle bumps into Katie Landry, an old flame; a few hours later, she’s found dead, strangled while wearing a rough-sex outfit.
At the center of the story — which Grabenstein tells with verve — is casino magician Richard Rock and his entourage. And as Ceepak and Boyle learn, illusion lies at the heart of the murder.
Grabenstein writes with wicked flair, Ceepak and Boyle are memorable creations and Atlantic City becomes an important character itself. But the plot’s the thing, and Grabenstein excels at fashioning an involving one.
A stranger hits town, a longtime resident is murdered, and guess who benefits from the will?
In Patterns in the Sand (296 pages, Obsidian, $23.95), the second in Sally Goldenbaum’s Seaside Knitters series, the answer may not be as obvious as it seems.
The story begins when newcomer Willow Adams is found asleep in Izzy Chambers’ knitting studio in Sea Harbor, Mass. When local artist Aidan Peabody is found dead a couple of days later, and when it’s discovered that Willow is his sole heir, it would be easy to jump to conclusions.
But Izzy and her knitting pals — all members of Sea Harbor’s art colony — resist the temptation and set out to untangle the secrets of Willow’s past and the identity of Aidan’s killer.
Goldenbaum’s plotting is plausible, her characters created with care, her style satisfactory. But the center of "Patterns in the Sand" is her vibrant and earnest portrait of friendship. This is a whodunit with a big heart.
She’s a single mom with a jerk of an ex-husband. She’s tentatively exploring a new romance with a cop. Her job’s a dream, she lives in trendy Venice Beach near Los Angeles, and her inquisitiveness leads her into danger.
Sound like a soap opera? Welcome to Dial Emmy for Murder (304 pages, Obsidian, $6.99), the second novel by soap star Eileen Davidson ("The Young and the Restless") featuring Alexis Peterson.
Since her last outing in "Death in Daytime," Alexis has moved from "The Yearning Tide" to "The Bare and the Brazen." At the Daytime Emmy Awards show, she’s scheduled to be a co-presenter. But Alexis must take the stage alone when her co-star and co-presenter, hunky Jackson Masters, doesn’t show up — until his murdered body falls from the rafters.
Enter police detective Frank Jakes, who’s attracted to Alexis and impressed with her skills as an amateur sleuth. All comes right, of course, as cop and actress crack the case, but not before enough twists and turns to make a daytime drama look like a documentary on dullness.
Davidson brings her backstage knowledge and her saucy persona to "Dial Emmy for Murder," and the result is another guilty pleasure for soap fans and mystery devotees.
Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or .
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