Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author
**** 1/2 (4 1/2 stars)
MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen, is the initial book in her SEA OATS BEACH series. You may remember that I reviewed Ms. Whalen’s second book in this series recently (WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH), and I mentioned that I thought I might have enjoyed it more had I read the opening salvo first – and I was right.
This first book has a simple plot, but I’m an animal lover, so it kept me engrossed from beginning to end. The Sea Oats Beach police chief, Derek Stanley, has been murdered at the Animal Control building next door to the police station and his body found in the pen of an adorable but bloodied French bulldog named Samson. Breanna Hart, the main character, is convinced the bulldog had nothing to do with the killing, regardless of all the bite marks on the man’s body, and is determined to prove it. Despite her social anxiety disorder, she takes on everyone and does everything she can to save the little dog’s life.
Ms. Whalen carefully builds all the characters that will appear throughout the SEA OATS BEACH series, and that’s so important to someone, like me, who reads a lot. Breanna is a truly sympathetic individual who stirred my heart, and to whom I could seriously relate. Her girlfriends are very different from one another, which made them easy to keep separate in my mind, but my favorite character, to my surprise, was Roscoe Blue, the former champion ‘surfer dude’ with a crush on Breanna, who spends all his time on the beach, still following the waves whenever his Italian Ice cart will let him.
MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH is an easy read. I know what it is to feel so compelled to fight for something that you risk everything and believe that failure isn’t an option, so this story is completely relatable to me. I really enjoyed it!
I’m giving MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH 4 ½ stars.