Come Shell or High Water
A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery #1
By Molly MacRae
ISBN 9781496744272
Author’s Website: mollymacrae.com
Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie
Synopsis:
When widowed folklorist Maureen Nash visits a legendary North Carolina barrier island shell shop, she discovers its resident ghost pirate and the mystery of a local’s untimely death . . .
As a professional storyteller, Maureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop’s owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she’ll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . .
In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own. (from Goodreads)
Review:
I looked forward to this opening mystery of its new series since I first heard about it. Happily, it exceeded my expectations in the kind of wonderful way that will keep me eagerly looking for the next one. The author delighted this appreciative reader and armchair traveler with descriptions of Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks.
Maureen had driven to Hatteras Landing to take the ferry to Ocracoke. Hurricane Electra was leaving the area, continuing to dump heavy rains and strong winds that shut down the ferry. She ran into Patricia, a local National Park ranger and a good friend from their college days. Against policy, Patricia gave Maureen a hair-raising ride to Ocracoke in her park service boat and later, a ride to the tiny rental she would live in for the next three weeks.
Maureen’s destination is Moon Shell, to meet the owner, Allen Withrow. He sells collectible and costly shells from the quaint old shop. She has fond memories of visiting it when she, her late husband, and their sons spent several summer vacations on Ocracoke almost fifteen years ago. When the rain had almost stopped, Maureen walked to the nearby beach before going to Moon Shell.
At the beach, Maureen saw a huge, amazing shell in the water that she struggled to capture and take with her. Scenes had been hand-carved into it, and she wondered how the rare find ended up in the ocean. Within a short time after leaving the beach through a wooded area, she tripped over something – a man with a knife sticking out of his chest! She ran. A short time later, she awoke inside a building without her shoes or socks. She heard voices that she didn’t recognize, and the people speaking didn’t know who she was or if she was alive.
Glady and Burt, elderly yet active siblings, lived across the street from Moon Shell. They were close friends with Allen. What little she remembered was that she ran through another downpour toward Moon Shell, clutching that huge shell, wanting a safe place in case the killer was nearby. She got an electrical shock when, unable to see the water on the floor due to the darkness, she tried to turn on a lamp. Glady and Burt had run there after seeing the light flash inside to find Maureen lying on the floor. They thought she was someone Allen was expecting to arrive and help him at the shop. As readers, we don’t know why Maureen is there until later in the story.
They contacted Deputy Frank Brown before going back out with Maureen to find the man she tripped over. When Maureen, Glady, and Burt found the man, he was lying face down. Deputy Brown arrived, turned the man over, and said that the dead man was Allen. He had a deep wound in his chest, the knife was gone, and the back of his head had been hit hard. Deputy Brown quickly determined Maureen to be his prime suspect.
Maureen had to recover from the electric shock and the horror of having tripped over a dead body. Then later in the shop, she met Emrys Lloyd, a ghost from the 18th century. Maureen never believed in ghosts before. Now, as she searches for a killer to save her own skin, one of those she relies on for help has a flickering wardrobe, including a tri-corn hat and knee breeches, but no skin or bones. As she, Glady and Burt became friends, Maureen certainly couldn’t tell them about Emrys…
This is Molly MacRae at her finest. With excellently described, primarily middle-aged or older characters in this fabulous mystery, she has offered a cozy mystery that is a compelling, suspenseful read. There are twists and turns that surprised, delighted, and even frightened this reader at times, and a bad guy I never anticipated. I highly recommend this first of what I hope is the beginning of a long running new series. And where else would we find three recipes for Burt’s tasty muffins?
