Death by the Sea: 09/15/24

Death by the Sea by Kathleen Bridge and Lauren Ezzo (Narrator) (2018) is the first book in the By the Sea mystery series. Liz Holt has returned home to the Indialantic by the Sea hotel run by her Aunt Amelia. The hotel's heyday is long past. At one point it was one of the destination spots for Melbourne, Florida.

These days it serves more as a low rent apartment for the down and out and their pets but a wealthy socialite demands a room for herself, her husband, and her cat. After a few days of putting Amelia and her staff through hell, the woman is murdered in the hotel.

Liz's father (who also lives in the hotel) is a private detective. Before the murder, Liz had plans to work for him while she decides if she will write her second novel. In the meantime, she's asked to work with a fire fighter / arson investigator visiting from New York. She's reluctant because he's an ass and she has a traumatic history with the Big Apple.

Liz has come home scared physically and mentally. The how and why of her injuries and her flight home is revealed slowly throughout the mystery. I think some of this revelation is done for the melodrama and I personally would have liked the straight version up front.

The mystery itself was entertaining enough. There aren't enough characters for a complicated solution but I was still surprised by how things played out.

The big character in this book and probably for the entirety of the series is the hotel. It's clearly inspired by an actual hotel, and I would argue is the same one that inspired the setting of Cloaked by Alex Flinn (2011). I found the similarities between the two distracting from time to time.

The second book is A Killing by the Sea (2018).

Four stars

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