10 Best Coastal Mystery Books Solving Mysteries by the Seaside!
Calling all beach bums and crime buffs! Ever wondered what could go wrong beside the soothing rhythm of the crashing waves and under the seemingly serene sky? While the beautiful coastline may seem like the perfect backdrop for tranquil, pondering, and sun-soaking, it sure makes for one hell of a crime scene too! From murder on the sandy shores to long-held secrets buried deep within idyllic seaside communities, our lineup of coastal mystery books will transport you right in the middle of these captivating whodunits - all from the comfort of your armchair, of course! Made for those who relish a good puzzle, these novels ooze suspense, thrill and intrigue on every page. Painted with delightful descriptions of picturesque coastal settings that'll make you yearn for a salty breeze in your hair, these mysteries are guaranteed to hook you from the first chapter. Gritty, gripping, and gloriously unpredictable, these stories unravel startling crimes in seemingly peaceful coastal settings. They serve the perfect fusion of comfort reading and nail-biting thrillers, making them your ideal companions for a lazy afternoon. Dive in to experience the best of coastal crime fiction- a tropical cocktail of sun, sand, surf, and suspense! Brace yourselves, for the tide of mystery comes rushing in!
『The Palm Beach Murders』
If it's too good to be true, then it most likely is--especially in these three adrenaline-filled stories that make one explosive book! The Palm Beach Murders (previously published as Let's Play Make-Believe): Both survivors of the divorce wars, Christy and Martin don't believe in love at first sight and certainly not on a first date. But from the instant they lock eyes, life becomes a sexy, romantic dream come true. That is, until they start playing a strangely intense game of make-believe -- a game that's about to go too far. (with James O. Born) Stingrays: When a teenager goes missing on a Caribbean beach, the local police are baffled. It's up to the Stingrays, a world class team that solves the unsolvable, to unearth the truth: a truth that no one will believe. (with Duane Swierczynski) Nooners: Everyone who knows Tim says he's a good guy. But the popular advertising exec has a problem: a lot of the people who know him are getting murdered. And by the time he figures out why, Tim won't feel so good anymore. (with Tim Arnold)
Author | James Patterson |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | |
Release Date | Mar 23, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Survivors』
Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on a single day when a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that haunts him still resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal town he once called home.Kieran's parents are struggling in a community which is bound, for better or worse, to the sea that is both a lifeline and a threat. Between them all is his absent brother Finn.When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge in the murder investigation that follows. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away
Author | Jane Harper |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | |
Release Date | Jan 21, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『Safe Haven』
"When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with her plainspoken neighbor, Jo; and another with Alex, a widowed store owner with two young children"--Page 4 of cover.
Author | Nicholas Sparks |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
Release Date | Sep 14, 2010 |
Source | Google Books |
『Hideaway』
"Reading Hideaway is like a mini vacation, as Roberts transports you from the sun-drenched mountains of Big Sur to the rolling hills of Ireland to the bustling streets of New York City." - Associated Press A family ranch in Big Sur country and a legacy of Hollywood royalty set the stage for Nora Roberts’ emotional new suspense novel, Hideaway. Caitlyn Sullivan had come from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a star—yet still an innocent child who loved to play hide and seek with her cousins at the family home in Big Sur. It was during one of those games that she disappeared. Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Dillon Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house—but when the teenager and his family heard her story they provided refuge, reuniting her with her loved ones. Cate’s ordeal, though, was far from over. First came the discovery of a shocking betrayal that would send someone she’d trusted to prison. Then there were years spent away in western Ireland, peaceful and protected but with restlessness growing in her soul. Finally, she would return to Los Angeles, gathering the courage to act again and get past the trauma that had derailed her life. What she didn’t yet know was that two seeds had been planted that long-ago night—one of a great love, and one of a terrible vengeance...
Author | Nora Roberts |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
Release Date | May 26, 2020 |
Source | Google Books |
『Death Knells and Wedding Bells』
Librarian Lucy’s wedding is nearly perfect—aside from a missing guest and the strangled body she finds. Now, she must vow to find the killer in this 10th Lighthouse Library mystery. Lucy and Connor planned for the perfect Outer Banks wedding—and that’s exactly what they got. Aside from typical rumblings of familial tensions, the late spring weather allowed for a beautiful day, the food was delicious, and everyone had a good time, until one of the guests goes missing. Before Lucy can look forward to the rest of her life in Nags Head and the work she does at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, she gets a phone call from her boss, Bertie James. Eddie, Bertie’s friend, never made it back home after the reception. Initially, Lucy doesn’t think anything of it—sometimes wedding guests simply have a little too much fun. But this quickly turns to something darker when she discovers the body of a wedding guest strangled in a locked closet, and the police immediately start asking questions about Eddie. Lucy must figure out if the two are connected before it’s too late—both for Bertie’s friend and the rest of her wedding guests. With the Classic Novel Reading Club reading the Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe—Lucy wonders if the master of the macabre can assist her investigation or if the hunt for the killer’s identity will remain as nothing more than an unsolved mystery.
Author | Eva Gates |
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Price | $13.99 |
Publisher | Crooked Lane Books |
Release Date | Jun 06, 2023 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Lamplighters』
“Transported me effortlessly…Haunting, harrowing and heartbreaking, this is a novel that will stay with you.” --Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push “A ghost story and fantastically gripping psychological investigation rolled into one. It is also a pitch-perfect piece of writing. . . . As with Shirley Jackson’s work or Sarah Waters’s masterpiece Affinity, in Stonex’s hands the unspoken, unexamined, unseen world we can call the supernatural, a world fed by repression and lies, becomes terrifyingly tangible.” --The Guardian (London) Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast--and about the wives who were left behind. What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent. It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45. Two decades later, the keepers' wives are visited by a writer determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe. In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.
Author | Emma Stonex |
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Price | $4.99 |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Mar 16, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Beach』
The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand.
Author | Alex Garland |
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Price | $4.99 |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Jul 05, 2005 |
Source | Google Books |
『Rebecca』
The classic Gothic suspense novel by Daphne du Maurier -- winner of the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century -- is now a Netflix film starring Lily James and Armie Hammer. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave. "Daphne du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings." --Stephen King
Author | Daphne du Maurier |
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Price | $10.99 |
Publisher | Little, Brown |
Release Date | Dec 17, 2013 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Talented Mr Ripley』
The first stage adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's famous crime novel Tom Ripley is a criminal with an ambiguous past. He is sent to Italy by a wealthy financier to try and coax home the rich man's son. In the process Ripley becomes both attracted and seduced, finding the murder the only way to deal with the situation. From that point Ripley tries to cover up his crime. Patricia Highsmith's beguiling tale of morality and amorality is given a dramatic rendering by contemporary dramatist Phyllis Nagy, who knew Highsmith in her later years in Paris. "Each play I see by Phyllis Nagy confirms me in the belief that she is the finest playwright to have emerged in the 1990s" (Financial Times)
Author | Patricia Highsmith/Phyllis Nagy |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | A&C Black |
Release Date | Apr 25, 2014 |
Source | Google Books |
『The French Lieutenant's Woman』
Perhaps the most beloved of John Fowles's internationally bestselling works, The French Lieutenant's Woman is a feat of seductive storytelling that effectively invents anew the Victorian novel. "Filled with enchanting mysteries and magically erotic possibilities" (New York Times), the novel inspired the hugely successful 1981 film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons and is today universally regarded as a modern classic.
Author | John Fowles |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Hachette UK |
Release Date | Jun 25, 2012 |
Source | Google Books |
Alright folks, there you have it! A complete roundup of our top ten coastal mystery novels guaranteed to kindle that intrigue within you. Whether you're lounging by the beach or bundled up in a cozy corner of your house, these books are bound to transport you to those eerie seashores where the unimagined unravels. Mingle with eccentric seaside locals, uncover age-old secrets buried beneath the sands and ride the wave of suspense with each turning page. What's not to love, right? But hey, don't just take our word for it. Dive right into these chilling tales and experience the thrill first-hand! The mysterious allure of these beachside towns await you. So, fix yourself a cuppa, find your favourite reading spot, and let yourself get swept up in these tales of coastal mystery and mayhem. Here's to some rip-roaring reading sessions! May these tales of the sea, sand, and unsolved mysteries feed your inner detective!
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