Murder on Sea by Julie Wassmer, Book Review

Pearl is busy running her seafood restaurant, yet her curiosity draws her efforts to her part-time private investigation work, be it to find an anonymous writer of nasty cards or a murderer. Her paths once again cross with those of the attractive DCI Mike McGuire from the Canterbury police force and sparks fly. Is romance in the air?

Murder on Sea, with its assortments of interesting characters, plays out in a windy and wet seaside resort town and the feisty heroine, Pearl, can cook as well as snoop. What’s not to like? This particular book takes place before Christmas, so if you are fed up with the holidays and glad to get back to ‘normal’, then perhaps save this book for next Advent. But if you have been struck down with the midwinter blues, then look no further than the Whitstable Pearl Series. There is something wholesome and life-affirming here, even with a murderer at large. 

The one thing the Whitstable Pearl Mysteries offers that few crime books have is community. A sense of people being inter-connected, supported, not abandoned in a dysfunctional world. Pearl’s eccentric mother, handsome gay neighbour, the voluptuous beautician, pushy estate agent, new-agey herbalist, young animal lovers, shrewd accountant, they all rub along. Germans love the wealth of eccentric characters England can provide like no other country on earth. (As an Austro-Canadian who has lived in several counties in Britain for over 30 years, take my word for it, there is more diversity in an English village than in many a capital city).  

You may be aware that Ian Rankin has said that readers in today’s ‘mad’ world will be drawn away from harsh crime to more comforting reading. As someone who loves variety in my reading choices, I have always liked to intersperse grittier crime with cosy crime books, for example, the Whitstable Pearl series by Julie Wassmer. Murder on Sea was first published by Constable in 2015, but it has come to my attention that it has now been translated into German. And I can see why. Germans too, need a fun read to brighten their daily lives.