For today’s review, we’re heading to Emerald Island for a murder mystery involving a lighthouse by Kevin Parham called “
Keeper of the East Bluff Light.”
***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***
What I love about this book:
I like the setting of this story since I’m a fan of nautical and seaside stories. Having worked on riverboats myself, while I never worked on ocean-faring vessels, I enjoy stories about sailors. The lighthouse was interesting as well, and I enjoyed the bits about what being a lighthouse keeper entails, especially over generations of time.
At the end of the narrative, in this story’s legal portion—while not an exhaustively precise take on a criminal court case—it’s still next level sublime. Little touches like knowing about the hearsay rule exceptions show an uncommon level of knowledge and care for authenticity.
In fact, one of Parham’s greatest skills as an author for me is his attention to little details, be they historical, situational, or occupational in nature. At the beginning of the story, he captures that gut-wrenching feeling anyone who has worked on the water knows. It’s when the weather unexpectantly changes, and the whole character of the water transforms in moments.
Parham has the steeled nerves to tell a story that doesn’t pull punches on characters even though they might be likable. This can be hard to remain objective on—most people aren’t too keen on making their heroes suffer. I do, however, feel that this good storytelling impulse did lead him to make at least one overcorrection, which didn’t make sense to me though.
What I don’t love about this book:
This story’s focus lacks a center, other than the lighthouse itself, which causes it to feel like a series of short stories tenuously related. Writing a story without a single protagonist is a valid artistic choice, but it means that the non-character elements need to go above and beyond, and I didn’t feel that they did.
Each third of the novel reads like a completely different novel from another genre. That alone would be an ambitious feat to pull off, but it’s hampered here because the cast of characters tends to change with each phase. The characters retained between phases rise and fall in relevance to the story being told at the moment.
There are at least three occasions within this story where my suspension of disbelief snapped, and I didn’t feel that the story logically flowed. To be fair, though, at least one of these was partly due to a miss-read on my part, which I’ll explain further down in the spoiler section.
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***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***
The quick and dirty synopsis:
First, we’re introduced to the erstwhile captain Samuel Biggs who serves as the protagonist for the first third of the story. He’s being informed by the Coast Guard inspector Jones that they are looking into what, if any, involvement the lighthouse Sam keeps had in a recent naval accident.
