Much Ado About Nauticaling by Gabby Allan

Reviewed by Jeanne

This first book in the Whit and Whiskers cozy mystery series is set on Santa Catalina Island where Whitney Dagner grew up.  She moved away, tried a corporate job, and then came back to help her family.  The Dagners run a glass bottom boat attraction that takes tourists around the island.  Whitney’s grandparents are gradually phasing out their involvement in favor of Whitney’s brother Nick, and Whitney decides to operate a gift shop in conjunction with the boat.

Business has been good, and the passengers have been enjoying themselves, never so much as when a small shark swims under the boat. After they disembark, Whitney is cleaning the glass in preparation for the next group when something else floats into view.  Not a shark this time, but a body.

The body of Jules Tisdale, a wealthy man who took a strong interest in all that happens on the island, and who was rumored to be about to set up a competing glass bottom boat attraction.  This makes Whitney’s brother Nick a suspect, but he’s not the only one with a motive:  the new widow seems much more interested in her upcoming inheritance than in who may have murdered her husband, there seem to be some women scorned in Jules’ past, and certain other island business owners may have had reasons for wishing Jules ill. 

Just to make things more interesting, Whitney’s ex-boyfriend Felix has turned up and is working for the police department as a diver. As little as she wants to, Whitney may have to team up with Felix if she’s going to keep Nick from going to jail.

I found this to be a solid, middle of the road cozy with most of the usual trappings.  I have to say that it suffered a bit unfairly because one of the subplots was almost exactly the same as in another cozy mystery I had finished just prior to starting this one.  The other book had been written some years before, so it was just my bad luck that I read these two so close together.

I liked the descriptions of the island and of the treasure maps Whitney and her grandfather set up, complete with a findable treasure.  Grandmother Goldie is an interesting character, a woman who feels she has earned her retirement and is bound to enjoy it. There’s an adorable cat along too. The one negative I’ll give is that the book ends a bit abruptly right after the murderer is revealed.

The second book in the series is due out in the summer of 2022.  The title is Something Fishy This Way Comes.