Dead Girl in a Charleston Marsh

In Brown’s (A Devil in the Drone, 2013, etc.) straightforward detective story, a private investigator must solve a former CIA agent’s murder in Charleston, South Carolina.

Harriet Bennett is an ex-assistant director at the CIA who recently quit her job to move South with her partner and teach at The Citadel, a military college. When she’s found dead in a Charleston marsh, it appears to be an open-and-shut kayaking accident, but the agency sends gumshoe John “Stick” LeMaster to investigate nonetheless. Signs soon point to Harriet being murdered, and her ties to communism, the Venezuelan Catholic Church and a failed coup against Hugo Chavez become more than just highlights of her former career. Her roommate, the sexually flexible Prissy St. Martin Snipes, along with Prissy’s father, Gumpy, and stepmother Leonore, aid Stick in his search for the killer. Like many other fictional private eyes, Stick’s a smooth-talking loner who’s fond of fine liquor, and he often finds himself the target of women’s flirtations. However, he isn’t a particularly brilliant detective, or even a particularly compelling lead character; more than once, he misses seemingly obvious opportunities to advance the case. Stick’s background as a former officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, who saw action in Iraq, might have made him truly unique, but despite the story’s Citadel setting, it’s a minor detail. However, his musings on Charleston life, from “She Crab soup” to the so-called Charleston uniform of blue blazer, tan slacks, blue button-down shirt and cordovan penny loafers, paint a warm picture of Southern living. They also give the story an amusing fish-out-of-water angle, aided by the appearance of Gumpy, a comical, if a bit stereotypical, born-and-bred South Carolina lawyer. This simple mystery may not stick with readers for long after they’ve finished, but it’s a fun, easy way to pass the time at the beach.

A run-of-the-mill but entertaining whodunit.