I have read Gayle Roper books before and enjoyed them. So I wasn’t surprised when I found myself reading this one and enjoying the story. It helped to pass the time waiting for my flight, the time in the air, and time waiting for the shuttle to take me almost home. Of course I was turning pages as fast as my eyes could read to figure out who the villain was and was going after next, so time disappeared with my surroundings. As the story unfolded and the flaws in the main characters came to light I felt as if they were people I already knew. You know, someone who had a real life, not a fairy tale beginning.  

Greg is a former police officer who left the force after his wife and two children are killed by a car bomb meant for him. After three years drowning in his sorrow he is beginning to surface.

Carrie ran away at sixteen, with her ten-year-old sister to the only place she knew her mother wouldn’t look. Seaside. The small beach community seemed a safe haven and was for many years. But Carrie is now grown and owns a cafe catering to the locals and summer tourists. When one of her dishwashers turns up dead, her sixteen-year-old waitress disappears, and a cult, The Pathway, seems to have strings reaching from Arizona to the East Coast, Carrie and Greg try to figure out what is happening.

They are helped in the mystery and in their deepening awareness of each other by the locals and their tweeting network. Who knew tweeting could be used to solve crime? It is a great set up for a series of mysteries in this sometimes sleepy community. The book cover includes the phrase “A Seaside Mystery” which raises my expectations this might be the beginning of a fun series with quirky town characters and a romantic location.  I want to know more about these people and meet more of their friends and neighbors.

The last book I read from Ms. Roper was set in Amish country. This was a fun surprise departure and shows her versatility and gift for story in any genre.