The Body at Back Beach

K.J. Sweeney's debut novel is set in a tight-knit seaside community in New Zealand, when, after some stormy weather, Helena Statham comes across a skeleton that's been exposed because of a coastal landslip. It's turns out to be the skeleton of a young woman, likely to have been buried for around 30 years, a period of time before Helena and her family moved to this area, but a timeframe in which many of the locals are still alive, and can remember what was going on around then.

The police are called, a taskforce is established and an investigation gets underway, but Helena despite never imagining herself much of a sleuth, has time on her hands due to decreased working hours and she feels the strange pull of connection to this young woman, whoever she is.

Flagged by many as a cosy mystery, that description fits with the idea of the amateur sleuth and a long-dead missing woman. There's nothing particularly confrontational about this crime scene, except the idea that a young woman could simply vanish from view and nobody seemed to think twice about it. It's also cosy in that the style is very much that of a lot of telling, and not much showing at all. The pace is glacial in some areas, where the identification of this woman seems to take quite a while given the timeframe is clear, and the community pretty small. A potential motivation and a suspect pool slip easily into place, and Helena continues with her prodding, poking and talking to everyone method of investigation that does sometimes seem to take quite a long time to go anywhere.

THE BODY AT BACK BEACH is more likely to appeal to fans of something slower, with a lot of dialogue and a gentle processional style progress. There is time here for some character development, and Helena is a woman of a certain age, with a happy home life, a career that's been enjoyable, who now seems to be looking to shift her focus to something else. Dare we say it, but perhaps something with a slight edge, which she seems to be doing, within the setting of an archetypal small town and community.