Cabana Bay

In Gonzales’ novel, a single mother must solve the mystery of what happened in Cabin 14 before her uncle’s Florida beachfront motel is shut down.

Manny, a former Army drill instructor and cop, has sunk his two pensions into a 16-cottage complex in Florida’s Cabana Bay.  His niece Moli, a police academy dropout wanting to get out of L.A. following a difficult divorce, agreed to help him as a housekeeper. That was two years ago. Usually, Moli finds beer cans and leftover pizza boxes in the cabins, but one morning she finds a semicomatose body. Detective Frank Winters, “a caricature of a southern law enforcement officer, complete with mirrored dark glasses and a drawl that had become a cliche for an evolving and growing Florida ethnic populace,” threatens to shut Manny down pending his investigation. With peak season approaching, Manny faces ruin if he falls behind on his payments. Though a reluctant partner to Manny, who needs to get ahead of the investigation, Moli discovers that that she can do much more than clean cottages. Her suspicions are immediately raised when Gloria, the bartender (and a formal model), points out that the victim had fancy photographic equipment but didn’t know the first thing about it. “Mr. Smith is not a photographer,” she tells Moli. One may not want to live there, but Cabana Bay is a nice place to visit for procedural mystery fans. Gonzales, the author of various mystery series, writes with a vivid sense of place and character. Moli, especially, proves herself to be a resourceful amateur shamus. A drinking game requiring a downed shot every time Winters says “amigo” would leave the reader in worse shape than the victim in Cabin 14, but the character becomes more nuanced as the story progresses (though he doesn’t appreciate Manny and Moli literally on his case). “Stay out of town police business,” he warns them. Happily for readers, they don’t.

This breezy beach read promises a bright future for the sleuthing uncle/niece duo.