Beach Reads. About Murder. At the Actual Beach.
Come summer, I’m happiest sitting on the porch of a rundown cottage in a coastal town gone to seed, with the sun just down over the harbor, something to drink, and in my hands the story of a murder. I don’t think I’m alone in that, either, not if the volume and variety of books conducive to the pastime are any measure. Now, for a good summer crime read, it’s not strictly necessary that the plot unfold at or near the seashore, but if you’ve gone to all the trouble of packing, fighting traffic, and shelling out the cash just to dwell a while in your own private Kokomo, why transport yourself right back out of it via fiction? (Those friends of yours who bring Nordic Noir to the beach? You have every right to question their fitness for society.) No, the better practice is to seek out a good salt-laced mystery, something where the tide washes in clues and there’s plenty of open sand for your detective to go traipsing across when he/she is in need of a good brooding think.
Crime is just more interesting when the ocean is nearby. Escape routes are many and perilous. Nature’s terrible force is never far from mind. And then there’s the local populace. Ports and beach towns attract an interesting cross-section of humanity, people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, eccentrics and misfits who tend to get up to interesting doings once thrown together in the tight confines of the land’s end.
Whether you’re of a mind for something hardboiled or cozy, local or exotic, a cosmic mind-fuck or a classic whodunit, you’ll find it on the coast. The only rule is that when you’re done reading and it’s time for you to go back to real life, the book stays behind. It’s the ancient law of the seashore. Here are ten oceanfront crime fictions and mysteries for your summer reading list.
Jean-Claude Izzo, Chourmo
About ten years ago, Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseille Trilogy was an international sensation. A decade on, the novels seem again under-read, underappreciated and in danger of slipping back into the pile of international crime fiction forgotten by most Americans. Trust me, that would be a mistake. Izzo’s Marseille is one of the most vividly rendered cities in contemporary literature. His detective, Fabio Montale, is Marseillais through-and-through. Montale’s great passion in life is sitting on the deck of the local café, sipping an espresso (or something stronger come afternoon), and gazing out at the Mediterranean. But the city keeps drawing him back in. In Chourmo, the second in the trilogy, Montale dives into a milieu still sadly resonant in today’s France: xenophobia, organized crime, the Front Nationale, and Islamist extremists. Meanwhile, we get the series’ hallmark: a running account of the Mediterranean bounty (food, drink, sex) Montale consumes along the way.
John D. MacDonald, The Deep Blue Goodbye
Really, you can’t go wrong bringing any of MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels to the coast, but why not start at the beginning? The first in the series opens with about as perfect a line as you could ever dream up for this sub-genre: “It was to have been a quiet evening at home. Home is the Busted Flush, a 52-foot barge-type houseboat, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale.” McGee specializes in “salvage”—reclaiming property for desperate people. In The Deep Blue Goodbye, a mild-mannered dancer named Cathy asks McGee for his help in recovering an illicit family-fortune from an abusive ex who swiped it out from under her. MacDonald is in the crime fiction pantheon, and if you haven’t yet read his work, summer is the time to start. (Sadly, the Deep Blue adaptation that fans have been waiting for is once again on ice; Christian Bale was meant to star, but blew out an ACL, scuttling production.)
Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice
Pynchon’s 2009 psychedelic detective novel has been gaining steam and devotees in recent years, possibly due to Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation, or possibly because the book’s air of paranoia (all politics are corrupt, the fascists are coming, the police are out to get you) seems especially relevant in today’s political climate. In Inherent Vice, it’s 1970 in Gordita (aka Manhattan Beach), a world of stoners, burnouts, surfers, greasers and seekers. The summer of love is all over and things are going sour. Doc Sportello is the scene’s PI, a far-out knight errant best described as a “gumsandal.” Through a series of (sort of) coincidences, he’s tasked with extracting an ex from a jam, tracking down a junkie rocker, recovering a convict’s money, and helping various other hip types out of their troubles with the straight world. And of course it all ties together, or seems to anyway—1970 SoCal had its own distinct kind of logic.
Kem Nunn, The Dogs of Winter
Nunn is the godfather of surf noir, and 30 years on his work still reigns atop the genre, although lately Nunn has been writing more TV series (Sons of Anarchy, Chance) than novels. The Dogs of Winter may be Nunn’s purest journey into nature; the book’s star is the secret surf break in California’s northern extreme, the lodestone that draws all its characters together. The plot involves a missing person, an unsolved murder and a tangle of obscure motives and manipulations. But more than anything, come to this book ready to commune with the maritime gods.
Malla Nunn, Let the Dead Lie
(No relation to Kem.) Malla Nunn’s follow-up to A Beautiful Place to Die moves the action to the ports. It’s 1953 in Durban, South Africa, and Detective Emmanuel Cooper, working the docks, finds the body of a young boy who was caught up in the city’s underworld. The country’s official apartheid policies are just coming into place, and solving the crime requires Cooper to cross hardening racial lines. It’s a dark, haunting story, but Durban’s rugged seaside beauty also shines through. Nunn is one of the continent’s great crime fiction talents, effortlessly blending social commentary, historical research, and procedural thrills into a compelling read. (This is a good selection for anyone who champions season 2 as the very best of The Wire.)
Stephen L. Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park
Carter’s first novel is a family drama wrapped in a mystery. The intrigue plays out in power locales up and down the eastern seaboard, especially in Martha’s Vineyard, where a group of upper class black families have summered for generations. At the book’s start, the patriarch, a federal judge, is found dead shortly after withdrawing his name from consideration for a Supreme Court seat. His children are tasked with deciphering and sorting his affairs, which include his shadowy ties to a spymaster. The book is worth reading for the entree to Oak Bluffs alone. The mystery, the penetrating characterization, and the astute social observations are bonuses.
PD James, Unnatural Causes
This is the third in PD James’ beloved Adam Dalgliesh series. It’s also the archetype for the small-town seaside mysteries that have kept the BBC in business this last decade or so. Dalgliesh is a talented, driven investigator with social skills that leave something to be desired. (Sound familiar?) In Unnatural Causes, he’s planning to enjoy a vacation on the Suffolk coast, but the murder of a well-known mystery writer requires the detective’s services. Expect plenty of windswept landscapes, agonizing walks on the beach, and a cast of eccentric, supremely British characters. This is quite possibly the perfect mystery book for a quiet night at a seaside cottage.
Elmore Leonard, La Brava
La Brava is South Beach in the final days of its seedy, crime-soaked 80s fame. The action moves from the hotel lobby to the beach to the diner and back again. It’s Newark by the Sea, Leonard’s forte. The usual trappings are there, too: chatty hustlers, washed-out law enforcement and aging gangsters, all caught in a maelstrom of fraud and murder, all told in Leonard’s signature style: a series of cool, wickedly clever dialogues and tightly packed scenes. The plot—a former secret service man tries to help an aging starlet out of a blackmail scam—is almost beside the point. The goal here is just to let the depravity and the ocean breeze wash over you.
Edna Buchanan, Miami, It’s Murder
At the Miami Herald, Edna Buchanan was the queen of the Miami crime beat. She even took home the Pulitzer in 1986. (Calvin Trillin’s profile of her in the New Yorker is well worth a read.) Starting in the 90s (boom days for Florida Noir, thanks in part to Leonard), she turned her attention to fiction. Buchanan’s most famous creation, Britt Montero, is a journalist and a dogged sleuth who shares many of Buchanan’s own eccentricities and preoccupations. For sun-drenched Miami crime, you won’t find a richer text than the 1994 Edgar-nominee, Miami, It’s Murder. The story, about a serial rapist terrorizing the city, is tough to take, but Buchanan takes it on with a no-nonsense grit and emotional insight that almost catches you by surprise.
Kwei Quartey, Murder at Cape Three Points
Quartey is an author and a physician currently based in California, but his Darko Dawson series, now five novels strong, is set in his home country, Ghana. In Murder at Cape Three Points, Dawson is sent to the coast to investigate after a prominent local couple turns up dead, the bodies set adrift in a canoe and discovered at an offshore oil rig. The clues lead to a corporate conspiracy, environmental assaults, and a grave threat to a remote village of fishermen. Quartey’s work is learned and gripping, and it offers insight into a culture few of us know.
Originally published in Literary Hub.
