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Murder on Hollywood Beach
Amanda Beckwith is a classic underachiever who finally hits the jackpot when she marries Santa Barbara wellness guru Geoff Martin. She is fast becoming the envy of her hip, 30-something girlfriends when Geoff dumps her for Bree, his massage therapist. With nothing to show for her short marriage but a couple of minor brushes with the law and a tiny drinking problem, Amanda escapes to Hollywood Beach, 20 miles south of Santa Barbara, to focus on her career as professional organizer and “Messy Girl” blogger for a small local newspaper.
When Bree is found murdered on the beach behind Amanda’s house, her life spirals into chaos. Detectives single her out as a person of interest. With few people listening to her side of the story, Amanda resorts to her own devices to clear her name.
As Amanda edges closer to the truth, her status shifts from person of interest to next victim.
When Bree is found murdered on the beach behind Amanda’s house, her life spirals into chaos. Detectives single her out as a person of interest. With few people listening to her side of the story, Amanda resorts to her own devices to clear her name.
As Amanda edges closer to the truth, her status shifts from person of interest to next victim.
292 pages, Paperback
Published March 22, 2022
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May 30, 2025
I'm not normally one to read murder mysteries published by obscure presses, but I was drawn into this one both because of meeting the author while playing golf and because of learning that it is set in Santa Barbara (where I used to live). Perhaps by virtue of its independent distribution, this novel has made it to print with some quirks that would surely have been pressed out if it had been made to fit the mould of the airport page-turner. The author is a former newspaper reporter and newspapers play a major role in the story: characters learn about the protagonist's association with the titular murder through the front page of the L.A. Times print edition and newspaper reporters and owners are major characters in the story.
I generally found the book to work better as a thriller than as a mystery. The author keeps up a propulsive feeling of risk and action. But in a really good mystery, the reader should be able to look back at the end, knowing what happened, and identify the evidence they might have used to crack the case before the characters did. Given how this story plays out, I don't think that is possible.
I found this book's greatest strength to be neither its plot nor its spot-on descriptions of life in the upper-crust of California's Central Coast. Rather, it is the mental picture painted of the main character. Authors—especially literary authors—tend to be thoughtful people, and so the characters of literature are often thoughtful and measured. They are often mouthpieces for the views or philosophies of the author. But in real life, we encounter people who are not like this: who are impulsive, disorganized, messy, and live by rules of thumb. That is our main character here, who, while she organizes people's closets for a living, cannot organize her own thoughts. It is maddening to inhabit her head in the first-person present tense for 280 pages, but her head is a real place that, importantly, exists in our world.
I generally found the book to work better as a thriller than as a mystery. The author keeps up a propulsive feeling of risk and action. But in a really good mystery, the reader should be able to look back at the end, knowing what happened, and identify the evidence they might have used to crack the case before the characters did. Given how this story plays out, I don't think that is possible.
I found this book's greatest strength to be neither its plot nor its spot-on descriptions of life in the upper-crust of California's Central Coast. Rather, it is the mental picture painted of the main character. Authors—especially literary authors—tend to be thoughtful people, and so the characters of literature are often thoughtful and measured. They are often mouthpieces for the views or philosophies of the author. But in real life, we encounter people who are not like this: who are impulsive, disorganized, messy, and live by rules of thumb. That is our main character here, who, while she organizes people's closets for a living, cannot organize her own thoughts. It is maddening to inhabit her head in the first-person present tense for 280 pages, but her head is a real place that, importantly, exists in our world.
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