Do you have a favorite place, or places, to visit? I have a few. One of them is the Delmarva peninsula, which forms the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Don Rich‘s Coastal Conspiracy is set in the portion of Virginia that forms the tail and tip of the Delmarva peninsula. This is an area where fish and crabs rule.
With Rich’s descriptions in Coastal Conspiracy (the first book in the series), I can see the charter boats and skipjacks. And taste the crab cakes and soft-shelled crabs. And hear the back-and-forth banter between the group of friends that make up the characters in the series.
In Coastal Conspiracy, Michael “Murph” Murphy and his girlfriend, Lindsay Davis, plan to purchase a run-down marina in Virginia, near the southern tip of the Delmarva peninsula, or Eastern Shore Virginia (ESVA) as this portion is known. Their plans are small because of a lack of enough funds to do an extensive expansion. When Casey Shaw, Murph’s friend, and a real estate investor, hears about the project, he is all in and uses his resources and his staff’s knowledge to greatly enhance the extent of the project.
When Bill Cooper, Marlin Denton, Kim Collier, and Timmy O’Shea, charter boat captains who currently lease slips at the marina, hear of the extended plans, they get nervous. That is until someone tries to stop the purchase and renovation. Even to the point of trying to kill Murph and Lindsay. The captains, along with Casey and Dawn Shaw, jump into action. Who is behind the violence, and why?
Straightforward prose enlivens the action in this series debut. Action scenes and scenes on the Chesapeake thrum with spot-on descriptions. I will definitely read further into the Coastal Adventure Series.
Traversing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel has been a goal of mine for a while. When I, one day, actually do travel across the bridge, I will always think of the characters in this series.