Call it serendipity. After ten years of marriage, Nina
Spark caught her husband cheating on her, which was not
such a bad thing after all; things had gotten stale. One
snowy New York City evening Nina is surfing the web, when
she spots the perfect little beachfront cottage, makes an
offer, and lo and behold, she's in. She takes a leave of
absence from her teaching job; after all, her sideline of
writing travel features for magazines can easily be done
with an internet connection. Nina packs lightly and flies
off to Pineapple Cay. It looks like things are picking
up, life is going to be good. Until Barry Bassett, an
entrepreneur who wants Nina's land to build condos and a
resort, pressures Nina to sell. Then Barry's rude,
tactless wife Tiffany vanishes along with an emerald
necklace that was salvaged from a shipwreck. Tiffany
seems to have been kidnapped and everybody's looking for
her, although not very hard; so put it mildly, Mrs.
Bassett was not liked too much.
I grew up on Agatha Christie, and Nina Spark is the
closest thing to a young, contemporary Miss Marple I've
come across, and that is good, very very good! I believe
SUNBAKED might also be the best written cozy mystery I
have ever read! Ms. Coffey's prose is effortless, fluid,
and absolutely flawless; the dialogues are superb, and
each character has a distinct voice. The author has a
definite flair for descriptions as well: the scenery is
painted vividly, in almost Crayola colours; I could
really picture Nina's cottage. The characters are very
well-rounded, especially Dave "Danish" Jensen, jack of
all trades extraordinaire, who totally captured my
imagination and is a perfect sidekick for Nina, who is
rather reserved.
I love the fact that Nina starts enquiring about
Tiffany's disappearance out of sociological curiosity;
it's an original angle and entirely coherent with Nina's
personality. SUNBAKED is a fun book, with a solid story
that flows seamlessly, and I cannot wait for the next
instalment in this series! If you need a vacation,
SUNBAKED will do the job! Enjoy your stay in Pineapple
Cay!
Nina bought a house off the internet. On a sunny Caribbean
island she’d never heard of before. At about two o’clock
in
the morning with a glass of red wine in her hand, a few
hours after her cheating husband had cleared out. She was
on
a plane to Pineapple Cay a week later.
Things seemed to get off to a good start. Nina’s new
hometown is the charming village of Coconut Cove, with its
narrow lanes lined with candy coloured houses and gardens
overflowing with tropical flowers. Her back yard is a
white
sand beach and the mesmerizing turquoise sea. Her next
door
neighbour is the handsome Ted Matthews, owner of a fishing
lodge. She’s invited to a glamourous dinner party at the
ocean hideaway of a famous rock musician and his lovely
wife.
But local big shot Barry Bassett has his eye on Nina’s
cozy
little beach cottage with the aim of tearing it down to
build condos. Then Barry’s obnoxious wife Tiffany goes
missing along with a priceless emerald necklace retrieved
from a ship wreck, and Nina finds herself sitting across a
desk from the very serious chief of police, Blue Roker,
wondering how her day dream of easy living in the islands
got so far off track so quickly.
Join Nina Spark and her new best friends the
philosophizing
mailman Danish Jensen and the ever cheerful Pansy
Gallagher,
as they careen around Pineapple Cay at the maximum speed
of
fifteen miles an hour in a golf cart, trying to figure out
what the heck is going on.
This is a story Jimmy Buffett and Agatha Christie might
have
come up with if they’d been holed up together for a
weekend
at some slightly faded beachfront hotel with a pitcher of
pina coladas and a box of fireworks.
A Caribbean beach holiday in book form and an action-
packed
comical caper.
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