The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall

Thank you Cath at Read-Warbler for your very fine review of The Shell House Detectives (2023).  Its the first novel in Emylia Hall's new mystery series and it takes place in West Cornwall in the fictional seaside town of Porthpella.  I was drawn in to the Shell House Detectives right from the start and I already have the second book in the series The Harbour Lights Mystery stored in my kindle.   

When the Shell House Detectives begins we are introduced to Ally Bright, a widow in her 60's.  She is an artist and beachcomber who makes beautiful paintings and sculptures from the items she finds on her walks along the beach.  Ally has a cute little dog named Fox and everything seems to be going well.  But Ally is dealing with grief.  Her husband Bill, a retired police officer, died  a year ago and life hasn't been the same since.

And then one night a young man, Lewis Pascoe, knocks on Ally's door. Bill told Lewis that he would be there for him if he ever needed help.  Lewis needs help now because he has just gotten out of prison only to find that his grandmother who raised him passed away and new people are living where his grandmother used to live.

Ally wants to help.  She remembers Lewis Pascoe's father, Paul Pascoe, who committed suicide 20 years ago when Lewis was a baby.  She is tempted Pl Ted to invite Lewis in to talk but lly is a woman alone it's late at night and so she breaks the news to Lewis that Bill is gone and that if Lewis is in trouble he needs to go to the police.  

The next day Ally is walking along the beach with Fox and notices that there has been an accident up ahead.  Ally gets closer and discovers it is Lewis.  He has fallen from the cliff and is barely alive.  The police are calling it an attempted suicide.

And that introduces us to Jayden Weston who is also there at the scene.  Jayden is 30 and recently retired from the Leeds police force after his partner was killed in the line of duty.  Jayden, like Ally, is somewhat lost.  He moved to Porthpella with his wife and baby on the way to have a more peaceful life.  But Jayden is bored because being a detective is in his blood.  Ally and Jayden are also not convinced that Lewis's accident was a suicide attempt particularly after a woman goes missing and the two cases seem to be related.  And so they decide to join forces to do their own investigating and help Lewis.

The Shell House Detectives is an atmospheric book and I would love to live in a seaside community in West Cornwall.  And the nearby sea we are talking about is the Atlantic Ocean.  Ally and Jayden start out in a melancholy place but their determination to find out what happened to Lewis awakens their spirit and drive and they have good chemistry together.

Ally and Jayden are well drawn and so is Saffron the young woman who owns the Hang Ten Coffee shop and likes to surf.  There is Gus who is working on a detective novel and Mullins a young Porthpella police officer with an admirable sense of duty.   I am thinking that along with Ally and Jayden, Saffron, Gus and Mullins are also going to be regulars in this series and I am all here for it.  I highly recommend The Shell House Detectives.

Top Ten Tuesday

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt, hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl, is about travel.  Here are my ten and I have read and recommend each of these books:

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - I read this book when I was in my twenties and loved it.  Blue Highways for me set the bar for travel memoirs.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder- such an important book about the high cost of housing in America and how many people are living in their vans.  I fear Nomadland will be even more relevant ten years from now

 

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer - A powerful book about a young man who decides to head to Alaska and live in the wilds with tragic results.  Very well written and thought provoking.

Kerouac by Ann Charters - Jack Kerouac was the consumate writer and traveler and this biography is excellent. 

Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil  by John Berendt -  in the 1990's the author travelled to  Savannah GA to write a magazine story and stumbled upon a story bigger than he could have ever dreamed.   216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and if you haven't read the book you should.  The movie does not do the book justice.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James - A really fine novel about a young woman who moves to an out of the way town in upstate New York.  She takes a job at a run down motel in the hope of finding out what happened to her aunt who worked at that same motel and disappeared over 30 years ago.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - Read this in my twenties and as I recall it was a struggle. But it's an important novel about a poor farming family, the Joads, who move from Oklahoma to Calfornia during the Great Depression.  It's possible I read it when I was too young and I definitely want to give this novel another chance.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden - A novel about a group of Anglican nuns who travel to the Himalaya mountains to open up a school and a medical clinic.   The sisters are not really prepared for the beauty and remoteness of the area and the culture shock.  Thus novel is very good with a haunting atmospheric quality. 

Life And Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan - The plot centers around a young woman who gets a very bad cancer diagnosis.  She decides if they can't cure her  why bother with treatment.  And so she moves to an island in the Caribean that her mother, who passed away when she was a teen, loved.  It sounds like a depressing read but I found it inspiring and hopeful.

Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz - Tony Horwitz was such a great writer of history and travel and he combined his talent for both in Confederattes In The Attic. 

Hope everyone has a great summer.  Stay cool and Happy Reading!