Death in Still Waters: A Chesapeake Bay Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Charming Waterfront Community Except Bodies Keep Popping Up!
Review: Eve Elliot has a bummer of a 40th birthday party. She's separated from her straying husband of 20+ years, she's sick and tired of the dog-eat-dog world of New York City high power advertising, and the spector of middle-age has reared its ugly gray head.

So an invitation to visit her favorite, elderly aunt, in the charming waterfront Maryland community near Chesapeake Bay, sounds like the perfect anecdote to encroaching burn-out and an inevitable divorce.

Aunt Lillian runs a small Real Estate office, faltering in the past year since the death of her beloved husband, Max. Eve's drive over to view the property of curmudgeonly Ray, whose waterfront holdings include a small cove, results in a gruesome discovery. It seems the old man is busy fishing the body of a large white out of the water, obviously someone's beloved pet.

Discovering the yellow nylon rope cinched tightly around the limp body, Eve can only imagine the worst. When the old man's body turns up floating the almost the exact same spot less than 24 hours later, close knit town folk begin to mutter and gossip, comparing this to another questionable drowning, in the identical location, 25 years ago!

While Eve struggles to come to grips with her failed marriage, and takes leave from her high pressure job, she also decides to take up residence in the dead man's cottage. Her sense of ownership, she found the man's body, lead her to ruffle more than a few feathers in the Pines. The hornet's nest she stirs up may come at a high cost: her life.

A number of locals come under suspicion as Eve seeks to unravel mysteries that most would prefer to ignore. The Police Department takes the view that these deaths are accidental, and takes little action, if any, toward solving what Eve is certain are linked murders. The final showdown is graphic, exciting and ultimately satisfying.

Lee's first novel gives a good sense of place, offers several deftly created, and likeable characters, and provides a highly enjoyable, plot-driven tale that you will be hard pressed to put down. Somewhere between a cozy and more sharply etched mystery, Barbara Lee has created a heroine that will have you seeking out her two other volumes in this highly regarded series: Final Closing and Dead Man's Fingers.