Having just finished
the third book in the series, A Deadly Turn, I thought I would
spend my time here today reminding you of the first book, The Branson Beauty. Sure,
it was published back in July 2016 so it is not that old, but I thought at the
time it did not get enough attention. Since it is the foundation of this
excellent series and you won’t appreciate just how good the new ones is if you
have not read the first, I thought I would bring it up today. For the rest of
the reading suggestions head over to the Sweet Freedom blog of Todd
Mason.
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.
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,
2019
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