April 15, 2013
In Viets’s entertaining 12th Dead-End Job mystery (after 2012’s Final Sail), Sunny Jim Sundusky, the owner of a Florida paddleboard concession, hires married PIs Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont to find out who’s been vandalizing his boards and otherwise trying to drive him out of business. When a customer, Ceci Odell, expires in the ocean on her rented board, Helen and Phil discover that Ceci’s death was no accident. A bitter ex-employee, the victim’s abusive husband, and greedy competitors all have a stake in seeing Sunny Jim fail—as do the city officials of fictional Riggs Beach, known as “Rigged Beach” for its rampant corruption. Meanwhile, a blackmailer threatens to expose the role Helen and her sister played in the disappearance of Helen’s ex-husband, Rob. Attempting to end the extortion, she reveals a deception that may leave her current marriage as dead as the murdered paddleboarder. Despite some clunky delivery of backstory, Viets shines at evoking Florida’s vibrant landscape and even more colorful characters. Agent: David Hendin, DH Literary.
April 15, 2013
Florida private eye Helen Hawthorne (Final Sail, 2012, etc.) helps a small businessman fight city hall. Everyone wants a piece of Sunny Jim Sundusky. Bill Bantry, owner of Bill's Boards, wants his customers. Cyrus Reed Horton, owner of Cy's on the Pier, wants the tiny piece of land on Riggs Beach where Sunny Jim rents out his standup paddleboards; at $10 an hour, Cy can make a pretty penny parking cars on that beachfront plot. Riggs Beach mayor Eustice Timmons, Commissioner Charlie Wyman and Commissioner Frank "the Fixer" Gordon all want Sunny Jim out of the way in order to strike a lucrative deal with either Bill or Cy. So Sundusky hires Helen and her husband, Phil Sagemont, to find out who's been vandalizing his boards. The ante gets upped big time when novice Ceci Odell takes a board out against Jim's advice at high tide and drowns. Before the city fathers can pull Jim's ticket, the medical examiner notices that Ceci was stabbed. Suspicion naturally falls on Ceci's husband, Daniel, who harassed his pudgy wife mercilessly. Then waitress Joan Right tells Helen about seeing a diver lurking under the pier about the time Ceci drowned. It's a slender lead, but it just might be the break Coronado Investigations needs to keep Sunny Jim from being chased off Riggs Beach. Viets' 12th proves that moving Helen from dead-end jobs into full-time employment does nothing to stifle her quirky good humor.
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