A #CrimeFicFridays Book Review | “Death Washes Ashore” (A Myrtle Beach Mystery, Book Two) by Caleb Wygal

Acquired Book By: Interestingly, I was first contacted in November, 2021 by Mr Wygal’s publicist about his Myrtle Beach Mysteries – however, I was a bit delayed in responding until March, 2022. It took a bit of time to receive the first two books in the series by Mr Wygal and then, I had a few delays of my own this Summer, 2022. He also sent me a copy of “Death Washes Ashore” the second book in the series which is when I realised I needed a copy of the prequel “The Brass Key” in order to better understand the sequencing of the series itself.

I had fully planned to read all the stories shortly thereafter in Autumn of 2022 however, my migraines returned in September and from October 2022 – February 2023 my family and I had gone through over 90+ days of loss (two cats) and medical emergencies with my father who had multiple hospitalisations and stays until he was finally able to be released into a 24/7 nursing care home where he could receive rehab and recovery. Ergo, my readings of this series were delayed due to circumstances rather than anything else which would have delayed me from reviewing the series. I posted my review last year for Death on the Boardwalk and The Brass Key (February, 2023). Whilst Spring 2023 involved an unplanned relocation and a search for a second job – you could say it has been an incredible ride since then juggling two jobs and life outside of work. My blog hasn’t been as updated as regularly as it used to be due to all these different circumstances, but I am coming back strong this Summer, 2024. Whilst I took a short hiatus from reading this series, two more installments have released and a third (book eight) will be releasing October, 2024.

This is another prime example of how publicists and authors alike read through my Review Policy and note the kind of stories I love to seek out to read. Quite a few of the requests I receive are a bit of a miss for me as a reader as they fall outside the realms of what I will accept as a reader or outside my review policy altogether. This is why I left the tweet in my sidebar to alert those seeking reviewers to know this is why we write those pages on our blogs – to help authors, publishers and publicists know our reading sensibilities and preferences. I am celebrating the authors, publishers and publicists today who kindly read those pages and offer us a story we can accept for review consideration.

I received a complimentary copy of “Death Washes Ashore” direct from the author Caleb Wygal in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

What I am enjoying about The Myrtle Beach Mysteries:

First off: I would definitely recommend reading the prequel The Brass Key ahead of Death on the Boardwalk because it sets such a lovely tone of entrance into the expanding series as much as Peggy and Mark are the kind of characters which endear you to them quite immediately and leave a mark of joy on your heart.

Wygal set a delightful tone of entrance into this Myrtle Berach Mysteries within his prequel of The Brass Key which also laid out the towne itself and gave us a warm entrance of place and setting. However, moreso than even that, I appreciated the chance to get to know Peggy and Mark, as through their own adventure in the towne, it opened the door to meet Clark ahead of his own purposeful position within the series, as well. Wygal has a dry wit about him and writes humour into the backbone of his Cosy series in a way that feels both modern and contemporary at the same time. He isn’t overly comedic either – which gives his series a refreshing voice and style.

The pacing of the series is wonderfully slow-brewing – to where you can settle into the atmosphere of the setting and appreciate where Wygal leads you to traverse through his version of Myrtle Beach. I had to smirk though a bit about the ‘golf car lifestyle’ images because that was something I had previously become familiar with in other stories as well as through travelling to different areas which have far more carts than cars! Laughs. Wygal gently touches on the background of his series setting whilst keeping the focus shifting forward through Clark (his main character) and the persons who interact with Clark as well. From their vantage points, we retreat closer to what is suspending itself behind the evolving mystery whilst gaining a bit more traction into getting our bearings about the community, too.

There is a light-heartedness to this series as much as there is just enough drama percolating in the background to draw your attention forward, too. I found myself delighted in reading the series – from the prequel into the first installment due to how light of a read they were and how enjoyable they were to read, too. Sometimes you want lighter fare in your readerly life and these fit that category brilliant for me. They also were a great transition back into reading after months of non-reading due to personal circumstances affecting my family, too.

I believe this would be a wicked Cosy series for the Cosy Mystery reader who wants to soak into the beachy atmosphere whilst endeavouring to walk alongside Clark and perhaps pick up on the clues as he does whilst potentially connect the dots just ahead of Clark, too! It was a lovely reprieve from reading harder hitting Cosy Crime dramas and I am eager to dive into Death Washes Ashore!

On being delightfully Cosy for Cosy:

For readers who are worried about descriptive scenes within Cosy Mysteries, this series is delightfully cosy for cosy – meaning, you don’t have to worry about descriptive crime scenes. The very first crime scene experience happens in the opening chapter(s) and Wygal shares less depiction of that scene than other Cosy Mystery authors which makes this a very gently told Cosy and a new spin on how you can lead a hearty Mystery without depicting violence.

Death Washes Ashore
Subtitle: A Myrtle Beach Mystery
by Caleb Wygal
Source: Direct from Author

Minutes after solving his first murder, Clark Thomas receives life-changing information about his past. But time waits for no one.

He receives a late-night message from Detective Moody soon after the body of a locally famous entertainer washes up on the Myrtle Beach shore. The department is under enormous pressure to solve the high-profile case quickly. They call upon Clark to help investigate, but to do it quietly.

Clark soon learns there was more to this entertainer than met the eye. He goes behind the curtain of the popular Gladiator Games Dinner Show and meets the performers and the victim's coworkers. He learns that the entertainer with a sparkling public persona was not as squeaky clean as he appeared.

Clark lends his unique ability to tie seemingly unrelated clues together as he races to solve the case. Along the way, he learns more about his wife's death. What he learns shatters his perception of the woman he once loved.

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Crime Fiction, Cosy Mystery

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781735437385

Also by this author: Death on the Boardwalk, The Brass Key

Published by Franklin Kerr Press

Format: Paperback Edition

Pages: 281

The Myrtle Beach Mysteries:

The Brass Key (A Prequel, 0.5) (see also Review)

Death on the Boardwalk (Book One) (see also Review)

Death Washes Ashore (Book Two)

Death on the Golden Mile (Book Three)

Death on the Causeway (Book Four)

Death at Tidal Creek (Book Five) *released, October 2023

Death on the Back Nine (Book Six) *released, 23rd April 2024

Myrtle Beach Burns (Book Seven) *forthcoming release October, 2024

Published By: Franklin/Kerr Press (@thefranklinkerr)

Converse via: #ContemporaryMystery or #CosyMystery
as well as #MyrtleBeachMysteries

Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook

on resuming my readings of this series:

I never thought I’d take such a long hiatus from reading this particular series, as I felt so dearly attached to it last year. However, due to different events and circumstances that occurred shortly after I finished reading the prequel and first novel of the Myrtle Beach Mysteries – my path back into the stories and the characters took a bit longer than planned to resume. It was this particular Summer where I felt re-inspired and rejuvenated in my efforts to not just return back into ‘reading’ per se but to re-attempt to become a regular book blogger again whilst re-defining my social reading presence online with #bookstagram as I have since left my convos and presence on the twitterverse where they were before the platform changed names. It has been a uniquely hard year but one that was also self-rewarding in what I was able to accomplish with the leap of faith I took whilst obtaining a second job. I might have lost hours to read but I never lost my appetite for reading. I knew I wanted to resume my #CrimeFicFridays showcases, and this was the series I wanted to kick-off my return.

I was so happy for the author finding out this will be a series of seven novels – I have the first four, so two more to read after this one and then, I will need to gather books five through seven. I was looking over his Insta feeds and it looks like he’s been having a lot of fun whilst meeting with readers IRL, too. If only I could travel and be there for the launch of book seven! Sounds like it’s going to be a wicked good event and party. I’ll definitely be there in spirit, though! For now, I am just happy to dive back into the series and see where we are now with the timeline of events and disclosures – as this might be Cosy but it has a lot of intrigue and suspense knitted behind it all, too. And, on a personal note – it is so much easier to read now with my new reading glasses! I felt this was also the best read for me whilst having the holiday ‘off’ from my jobs – a special treat, truly, as I generally as rule work all holidays.

my review of death washes ashore:

Death definitely washed ashore in this sequel – as I love when writers title their novels with a distinctive nod to what is going to happen within their stories. This time round, Clark is being asked for a favour rather than stumbling upon the dead on his ownsome which is a nice switch-up. As apparently, on the heels of solving his first ‘case’ he is now a bit in demand with the detectives who could use someone who uses their mind creatively to work out the solutions behind the crimes. The tongue-in-cheek humour is back as well, and I was grateful he also maintained the attention to detail to remain ‘cosy’ rather than grisly or gruesome as this particular victim could have been described much worse for the reader. I, of course, appreciated Wygal’s style of focusing more on the investigation than the descriptive ways a death scene could be visually explained if this were a Hard-Boiled Mystery rather than a Cosy.

One of the reasons I enjoy Clark as a lead character is because he is introspective and considerate. He likes to take his time to ruminate over things and to sort out his thoughts about the things that happen round him. In this way, it offers a more interpersonal connection to him as you are privy to what he’s going through internally and not just externally. He’s affected by more than just the crimes he is positioned to solve and that makes him both humbled and afflicted. This time round he’s being given conflictive responses from the detectives – they both want him involved but cannot make it an official request which I knew left him equally flummoxed if he ought to even consider being involved at all. I felt for him too, because, of greater import was the information he received about his wife and that to me, seemed more critical to focus on than the current case the MBPD were working on themselves. Except to say, the former was a harder case to pursue due to the time between when she died and the current timeline of his life.

I was half giggling with laughter when I reached the passage where Clark took his Mum out to dinner, and she found herself bemused for the experience! She even took-on the character of an affluent attendee of the Colosseum Gladiator Games (or however which they were referred) but they were quite literally at a colosseum fully constructed to appear and feel as if you were at the real one in Rome. She had spunk and I liked that about her the most. She also was insightful about Clark and that said a lot as well. We were being transported into this world of dinner theatre because of how it co-related to the deceased and that was a new twist for me as I haven’t read a lot of Cosies set within the world(s) of live dinner theatre performances and I, myself, only attended one when I was a kid, too. I could see the appeal for Wygal to write a story set within that environment as it is not oft explored, and it would parlay to a lot of winding avenues for a mystery to become untangled.

I had to smirk really at how the local PD was insisting that Clark NOT pursue this case and yet, were doing everything they could to persuade him to tackle it. Moody was the cheekiest of all – not because he was warm and fuzzy as a detective, quite the opposite but because of how deadpan serious he was whenever he spoke to Clark. He was the voice of both reason and intrigue when it came to the current case in front of Clark and the cold case involving his wife’s death. You had to give the bloke credit – he might have his loyalties, but I felt for whichever reason, he really trusted Clark and wanted him to remain clued into the inner circle of information he and his colleague had on this case.

The best person to step forward into the series was Lucy. The old flame of Clark’s from college as she served as a mediator and interceptor of knowledge in respect to the life at the colosseum. It was quite the interesting environment for dinner theatre, too. Not just due to the cast and the drama behind the story they told through their performances but due to the interworkings of the location itself. It was one large maze of rooms and offices and kitchens. It lent the notion that there could be as many secrets being kept there as there could be motives to commit a crime. Through Lucy’s connections as she worked as a server during the performances, we were able to get an up close and informal look into the business side of it all. From those who worked behind-the-scenes to the people in charge – some of course raised a red flag as Clark interviewed them but part of me wondered which of those flags was genuine and which might be a red herring or two. Lucy for her part I felt was keeping something from Clark, too, but I couldn’t quite sort it out either.

Lucy became an integral part of how Clark was sleuthing out the truth in this installment as he needed her connections to make most of his interviews. All the while, it allowed them to gain some traction of clarity about their lives – the paths they both took after college and where they were with their lives now that they were reunited. It opened a door of questions for Clark – some of which he didn’t seem to want to contemplate and others, left him with a bit of pause. Almost even questioning if this chance reunion was meant to be ‘something’ rather than just an odd coincidence of convenience. Clark his part, was cluing in on what was being revealled to him by each person he interviewed and tried to push aside the thoughts he had now about Lucy and in turn, contemplating what her thoughts might be for him since they crossed paths again. It was a nice diversion of sorts – partnering with Lucy and keeping that balance of boundary between them.

I admit, I hadn’t fully connected on the dots together in this particular case, but I knew there was a connection to the Colosseum. Wygal spent a lot of time guiding us around Myrtle Beach, too, like we were a regular visitor or hometown resident which enlarged our understanding of the layout and roads which made up the beachy community. A lot of his instincts for piercing together the mystery was rooted in his observations, his interviews and his keen sense of awareness about how persons fit together and how situations can arise out of anger or hatred. The best bit about this story was seeing Clark rise into a new chapter of his own life – one where he was going to put himself first and trust his own instincts in regard to what he wanted to do most in life.

I found this sequel to be wicked fast paced and entertainingly cunning. There were a lot of different ways this could have gone and there were quite a few suspects who could have had motive, but I felt Wygal selected the best villain so to speak of them all. Except for myself, it felt more like a victim than a villain – not all deaths are motivated by what you think is causing the person to act in such a violent way towards another person. Sometimes, emotion and anger can swirl together and cause a reaction that leads to death and that is what happened in this story. The fallout of course had a lot of hidden tragedies because more than a few lives were affected by the end result. In true fashion of the series, Wygal handled all of those scenes with compassion and empathy and planted the seeds of how the series would shift forward and continue to showcase Clark’s knack for amateur sleuthing.

on the cosy styling of intrigue by caleb wygal:

I have to give Wygal credit. I hadn’t seen the ‘change of events’ coming – as we shifted from the first novel into the second. In fact, it reminded me a bit about the journey Monk went on himself (ie. from the tv series Monk) and the anguish that that journey cost him in the long-term. However, in this particular case, it was how Wygal chose to disclose the information that hits hard but still allows you to breathe – because you’re as confused as his lead character Clark. It is like living your life on one path only to realise you diverted somewhere in time and were walking a completely different life altogether than the one you felt you were living. That takes time to process and resolve, if you can resolve it at all. I appreciated this segue and the new information it brought – because I had a feeling it was going to redefine the series quite a heap and also, give Clark a deeper purpose into what drives him into investigations and why he is so good at solving the mysteries and crimes he tackles as an amateur sleuth.

I love how Wygal keeps us firmly rooted in the Boardwalk community of downtown Myrtle Beach as it is a very attentive and active community within the larger scope of the city itself. He has a penchant for describing the setting to where you feel as if you’ve visited the area yourself and gives you a fuller scope of what you might find there if you were to return. Plus, of course, the setting itself is also quirky because of the different kinds of businesses that are present and the close proximity to the beaches. It is a different kind of lifestyle and one I appreciate getting to know a bit more each time I read one of the installments of this series.

The beauty of reading this series is how well-paced the story becomes and how fully engrossed you are with Clark’s journey into sleuthing out the truth. The moment I picked up this novel, even over a year since I read the first two stories in the series, I was fully invested in the dialogue and the plot. I couldn’t put it down in other words because I simply wanted to absorb the new details and the progression of time within Clark’s life. This story was less about the bookstore and more about the evolving ways in which Clark is connected to the community. We have a fuller scope of his life as well – from family to old flames to where he spends his time away from the store. It gives a good overview of what happens during the hours he’s living his life and I felt it was a good fit for this part of the series as it allowed us to see the expansion of his presence in this setting.

On being delightfully Cosy for Cosy:

I also like the tone and voice of the series as well. It isn’t abrasive and Wygal uses clever turns of phrase to clue you into what he’s trying to convey. It is nice to find a Cosy series like this one that is enjoyable start to finish without having to worry about what you might meet against the pages. That is definitely true for most Cosies but sometimes modern Cosies are a bit less ‘cosy’ than most if you know what I mean?

This book review is courtesy of:
the author Caleb Wygal

This review will be cross-posted to LibraryThing.

{SOURCES: Book covers for “The Brass Key”, “Death on the Boardwalk”, “Death Washes Ashore” and “Death on the Golden Mile”, book synopsises, author photo and biography were provided by and are used with permission of the author Caleb Wygal. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. LibraryThing banner provided by librarything.com and used with permission. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #CrimeFicFridays banner and the Comment Box Banner.}

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