Midnight Beach — Linda Wells

2023-07-18A high school teacher learns dark, unwelcome secrets may be hiding in her family’s tumultuous lives in Wells’ thriller.Floridian Leigh Prentiss is upset when, at the last minute, her husband, Garrett, bows out of a family getaway. It’s not entirely surprising, though, as his law firm keeps him busy. So Leigh and the couple’s two kids, 15-year-old Jay and 7-year-old Jenny, head to their beloved three-story beach house on the East Coast of Florida. There’s good news: Leigh’s younger sister, Kristen, will join the family for at least a couple of days. It’s a chance for Leigh to confide in her sister about Garrett, who’s been distant—the once-close husband and wife now habitually argue. Garrett having an affair is definitely one possibility, but there’s a lot more going on than Leigh knows. Kristen, for instance, hasn’t told her everything about her own recent split, brought on after she caught her husband cheating. And Garrett is working through a few things of his own, namely an unexpected hitch with a startup company he’s got a share in. Meanwhile, over in Midnight Beach, Leigh has more than one happy run-in with handsome former Marine Jack McDermott, an ex-investment advisor turned beach patrol manager. His warmhearted nature and friendship are exactly what Leigh needs…but perhaps something deeper is growing between the two. In the midst of all this chaos, there’s someone angry enough to kill.Wells’ story is an impressive exercise in subtlety. It draws readers in with its depiction of a strained marriage and a mother worried that her children miss their absent father; readers, at the outset, only know as much as Leigh, who simply can’t explain the “rift” between the couple. The alternating narrative perspectives of Kristen, Garrett, and others gradually illuminate all that’s been unfolding over the previous six months. The author gleefully piles on savory thriller ingredients: snooping through emails, the appearance of threatening notes, and suppressed resentment sparking hate-fueled revenge. Nevertheless, a few morsels wind up lost in the mix, such as one serious crime that the story, rather oddly, barely acknowledges. Leigh and Jack’s nascent romance is nuanced; they hit it off on an emotional level (“She felt as though he was an old friend, although they’d met officially only last evening at the concert”). But the novel’s highlight is the connection between Leigh and her kids. Like all great mothers, she loves them unconditionally, even as the incessantly sullen teen Jay ignores her and the much younger Jenny clings to her. Wells’ concise prose keeps the narrative moving at a steady beat—surprising turns come one after another. Most of the intersecting sub-plots wrap up convincingly; some are predictable, while others are left open, implying the directions certain relationships will go. The murder happens later in the tale than some readers may anticipate, but its impact is great and leads to an unforgettable ending.A quietly absorbing story of fractured family ties and deception.