The Branson Beauty is a paddle wheel boat that takes a
certain route around the lake under the captainship of Albert Eberhardt. He’s
been on the route for almost 20 years and knows this lake in the Ozarks just
outside of Branson, Missouri like the proverbial back of his hand.
Inexplicably, with
approximately 120 passengers on board and many of them
elderly, he has managed to run the classic showboat aground on the rock
outcropping in the lake.
Getting the folks on
the boat safely off on this cold windy day is going to strain local resources
to the limit. This is going to be the first real test for new Sheriff Hank
Worth. He has to coordinate a rescue operation and control a number of volatile
factors including the representative of the company who is far more concerned
about bad publicity than the safety of the passengers and crew.
Things become immeasurably
more complicated with the discovery of a body onboard. In a variation of a
classic locked room mystery, eighteen year old Mandy Bryson is found dead inside
the captain’s private dining room. There is no question from the start that it
was murder. Not only is Captain Albert Eberhardt unable to answer questions
about how and why the boat ran a ground, no one seems to know why Mandy was on board
or who killed her. Sheriff Hank Worth is an outsider and folks are not about to
start telling secrets.
The Branson Beauty is the first in what hopefully will be
a long running series by Claire Booth. A complex multi-faceted mystery, a host
of secondary characters with their own stories to tell, and a richness of
setting and details make this a very good read. It reminded this reviewer quite
a bit of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series by Bill Crider as well as the Sheriff
Samuel Craddock series by Terry Shames. The same down home folksy feel
with family, small town secrets and gossip, and strong mysteries.
If it isn’t clear
already, The Branson Beauty by Claire Booth is very much recommended.
For a far more
detailed reviews of this very good book, check out David Cranmer’s review.
The Branson Beauty
Claire Booth
Minotaur Books (St. Martins Publishing
Group)
July 2016
ISBN# 978-1-250-08438-5
Hardback (eBook format available)
321 Pages
$25.99
Material supplied by the
good folks of the Plano Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2016
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2 comments:
I totally loved this book ;-)
I did too. One of my favorite books of the year.
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