Book Blurb:
When Faye Underwood, a distraught young woman, disappears from the elegant Ocean Forest Hotel, Feltus Boone LaMont, the quintessential Southern hotel detective, is drawn into the emotional drama surrounding the guests.
As Feltus conducts his investigation into Faye's apparent murder, her husband, Terence, is found murdered in their suite-with the door locked from the inside.
This draws Feltus further into the intriguing web surrounding the Underwoods and their acquaintances-Lord and Lady Ashburn (a British couple on holiday), Ms. Elizabeth Bascomb (a blind clairvoyant), and Preacher Cooper (a devout man of the cloth).
The intricate plot that stretches from Myrtle Beach to the battlefields of World War II unfolds as a very persistence Feltus eventually uncovers the skeletons in the closets of all his guests.
Gary's Review:
In Murder at the Ocean
Forest by Robert “Digger” Cartwright we’re treated to a murder mystery set
in South Carolina
in the1940’s. We have a list of suspects which include an aristocratic married
couple from Britain, a
bickering husband and wife from South
Carolina dripping with Old South money, a preacher
who is not afraid to break a few rules while doing the Lord’s work, and a
world-renowned clairvoyant.
Most of the action takes place at the elegant Ocean Front
Hotel on the Atlantic Ocean. Woven throughout
the story are three elements which seem never too far from the action: a
gathering storm that threatens to turn into a hurricane, a painting with eyes
that seem to follow guests as they pass through the hotel’s corridors and a
supernatural entity named the Grey Ghost which is said to haunt the beaches
outside the hotel. We’re given detailed backgrounds of the main characters
before anything sinister takes place.
Lord George Ashburn and Lady Jane Ashburn had embarked on a
trip to the States while Lord Ashburn was recuperating from wounds suffered on
the field of battle in World War Two. Here Lord Ashburn recounts the events
leading to his injuries:
“Accident in the
battlefields of France,”
he continued as though she would be interested in learning of his misfortune.
His voice was strong and authoritative, giving way to his military experience
and his own belief that when he spoke people should listen. “Lost most of my
men there. Good soldiers they were, but the Nazis had us outnumbered three to
one. I caught a bullet in my leg and some shrapnel in my back. Doctors on the
field nearly lost me, but I was too stubborn to die.”
A nasty rumor has followed Lord Ashburn alleging that the
platoon of Allied soldiers massacred at the hands of the Germans may have met
their demise due to either his incompetence or his duplicity.
Lady Jane Ashburn has borne the burdens of maintaining the
home front while her husband was at war. Now she struggles with her emotions as
she has had to take the lead on helping with her husband’s recuperation.
… The war, of course,
had changed people for the worse it seemed, especially those directly involved
in the conflict; those individuals returned home with a cloud in their eyes
that seemed to prevent the horrors of the fields from escaping from their
minds. They were never free again; rather, they became prisoners of their own
experiences that had been captured in their minds almost photographically. Most
of those people afflicted as such never recovered, forcing their families to
suffer with them in some private hell. She had been determined to save George,
even if it meant dragging him halfway around the world, and all the better if
she was able to kill two birds with one stone.
Faye and Terrence Underwood appeared to be the perfect
couple. Terrence was a dashing fighter pilot, bred from moneyed stock, and
Faye, so beautiful and refined, a perfect match for her perfect husband. On the
train ride to the Ocean
Forest hotel, however,
turbulence bubbled beneath their perfect personas.
“Faye,” Terence
continued, “we’ll be there in about an hour. Perhaps you’d like to join me in
the club car for a drink before we arrive. I’ve met some very interesting
people who will be staying at the hotel as well.”
“I’m sure you have,”
Faye said with the slightest touch of sarcasm in her voice, but enough to make
her husband take notice of her displeasure.
Terence’s entire body stiffened at the remark.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Faye gracefully moved
her tongue over her dry lips. “I’m sure you have already met some interesting
women, Terence. Tell me, how many have there been on this trip?”
Sighing at this
accusation, Terence stepped away from her chair and turned his back to her.
“There have been no women on this trip, you know that.”
Preacher Cooper was returning home to South
Carolina from war-torn Europe,
his suitcase containing Bibles never far from his reach. The good reverend
recounted his easy passages through international checkpoints:
Preacher Cooper
smiled. “When I tell them I like to keep my books near me, they understand
completely. They hardly ever even ask me to open my cases, but if they do, they
see The Bibles and immediately let me pass.” It had always been that simple,
from the very first time he had brought cargo from France
to the United States.
Most people never doubted a man of the cloth, especially if he was doing the
good Lord’s work. If there were any trouble, he would simply charm him with
some blessings and talk of his humble deeds in the battlefields.
Elizabeth Bascomb’s place as the America’s premier clairvoyant had
been cemented after helping law enforcement all across the country solve
murders. Elizabeth’s prowess was celebrated for
two reasons: even though Elizabeth
was of an advanced age she was prolific at solving here-to-for unsolved
murders, and because she was blind. She had lost her sight in her youth in a
terrible auto accident at the hands of a drunk driver. That driver was rumored
to be a guest at the hotel. Not long after arriving at the Ocean Forest,
Elizabeth
sensed all was not right at the grand hotel.
Immediately upon
setting foot into the renowned section of the hotel, Elizabeth began to experience another vision,
surprising her by the frequency with which they had appeared to her during her
stay here. It was if she had found a place conducive to such activities, though
she attributed much to the troubled young woman who she had befriended. This
vision was short but harrowing; there was a man, whom she recognized as an
aviator, in his plane with a beautiful, wealthy woman at his side. While they
conversed, the plane began its descent without the aviator’s control.
When greed, lust and revenge converge in a murder mystery,
people are going to start dying and people are going to start lying. When the
dying starts at the Ocean Forest, Hotel Inspector and member of the local
constabulary, Feltus Boone La Mont
is called to the crime scene to unravel the tangled details. A high-profile
case at such a storied venue would draw a huge amount of publicity to the small
town and make the investigation a nightmare, but Feltus was confident he was up
to overseeing the investigation.
It really was quite
inconsiderate of these supposedly “upstanding” people, whose wealth and social
status permitted their vacationing here, to hover like vultures awaiting the
news of a peer’s misfortune, even if this was the most exciting event in their
relatively dull lives. He knew immediately that the suspicions were already
circulating among the guests and that they only needed confirmation in order to
aggrandize the entire miserable affair. Unfortunately, he would also be the
center of attention for the next day…
The waves pound the shoreline of the majestic Ocean Forest
while the Grey Ghost taunts those foolish enough to challenge the coming storm.
The eyes of two figures in a painting seem to watch over the guests within the
sturdy walls of the hotel. The walls provide protection from the power of
superstition and the violence of nature, but unfortunately they can offer no
protection from the force of human nature.
I can’t recommend Murder
at the Ocean Forest. It was very difficult to read. Many sentences were
torturously long. The same story could have been easily written cutting out two
thirds of the text.
Written from an omniscient point of view, as murder
mysteries tend to be written, the reader hears the thoughts of each character
as we enter their point of view. However the book floods the reader with the
point-of-view character’s thoughts, some relevant to the story, some not.
Sometimes a sentence would begin with a character thinking about one thing and
taking almost a contradictory position by sentence’s end.
The lovely scent of the
fully blooming roses of all colours imaginable and robust gladiolas floated
through the air and filled her nostrils with the aroma that soothed and relaxed
both the mind and the body yet instilled in her a sense of foreboding and doom.
The long sentences, many fifty, sixty, and seventy words and longer (a few coming in
at over a hundred words) melded together to build towering paragraphs that only
the most determined reader would scale. Paragraphs such as these can be
discouraging and invite the reader to skip long sections of an author’s work. A
reader who has to jump over sections of an author’s work is not likely to be a
return customer. There were beautiful descriptions in Ocean Forest, however those descriptions tended to be lost within
the many superfluous sentences and may go unread by the reader who wants to
find out whodunit.
There were many opportunities for action given the cast of
characters and the setting but most of Murder
at the Ocean Forest was written as “telling, not showing.” Within the
“telling” were annoying examples of author intrusion.
“Mr. Underwood, I has
your baggage, sir,” he said with a strong Southern accent and improper grammar,
given that he had had no formal education as a child.
The reader is capable of surmising that hired help at a
hotel in 1940’s South Carolina
has not had benefit of a good education just from the character’s words. Again:
“How are you enjoying yourselves?” Terence
asked.
“We’re having a splendid time,” she
replied then added as if to insult her admirer, “though it is quite unfortunate
that my husband couldn’t be joining us on the floor tonight, given his
condition and all.”
“Oh, yes,” he agreed
with emphasis and false sincerity.
The dialogue could have been written in a manner which
allowed the reader to discern tone and attitude from the characters without the
narrative intruding. A reader doesn’t want to pause and say to himself, “Why
did the author write it like that? Does he think I can’t figure it out for
myself?”
Another reason for the very passive tone of the novel was an
avalanche of adverbs. “Ly” words weighed the story down from the beginning. The
abundance of the words “quickly,” “slowly” and “perfectly” stood out.
The setting for Ocean Forest was laid out nicely, though it used too
much exposition. A murder mystery set in an environment of extreme wealth which
exists alongside extreme poverty and populated by class-conscious people who
invade good-old-boy country is intriguing. The backdrop of World War Two and
the recent Great Depression seemed to offer great story possibilities for the
reader.
Avoiding unintentional humor in a novel is one of many
reasons I believe that writers should involve themselves in a critique group. A
writer has a dozen other things going on in his head while trying
to construct a plot, build believable characters, fact check, etc. Without good
friends of like mind a writer can miss something. Here’s an example of
unintentional humor that might not have made it into Ocean Forest’s manuscript if a couple of extra sets
of eyes had looked over it:
Her mouth dropped
open, revealing her white teeth and thick tongue, but she immediately moved her
hands to her face to conceal her expression, though it was evident she was
already greatly surprised.
Murder at the Ocean
Forest was cumbersome to read and at times boring. One-and-a-half stars.
Thanks again to Gary for taking time out of his busy schedule to read and review for us here at the blog. If Murder at the Ocean Forest sounds like something up your alley, you can pick up a copy by clicking on Amazon.
Author Bio:
Digger Cartwright is the author of several mystery stories and novels,
including Murder at the Ocean Forest and The Versailles Conspiracy. As a
noted industrialist, investor, and director of several private
companies, Mr. Cartwright has written numerous articles on a wide range
of financial, strategic planning, and policy topics and has contributed
editorial content for the independent think tank, Thinking Outside the
Box. He is also the contributing author of several finance and economic
books. He divides his time between Washington, D.C., South Carolina, and
Florida.
Author Bio:
Digger Cartwright is the author of several mystery stories and novels,
including Murder at the Ocean Forest and The Versailles Conspiracy. As a
noted industrialist, investor, and director of several private
companies, Mr. Cartwright has written numerous articles on a wide range
of financial, strategic planning, and policy topics and has contributed
editorial content for the independent think tank, Thinking Outside the
Box. He is also the contributing author of several finance and economic
books. He divides his time between Washington, D.C., South Carolina, and
Florida.
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