Baxter McCracken, a practical harbormaster with a cat and a lint roller, becomes an amateur investigator at a Florida marina after a pleasure boat explodes and a young woman is found dead aboard. As he tracks clues - a soggy cell phone, hidden drugs, counterfeit bills, fraught relationships - the quiet harbor peels back to reveal dangerous secrets, divided loyalties, and a suspect list that includes a doctor, the marina owner, and a guilt-ridden dockhand. If you enjoy a reluctant hero, Florida detective, or coastal noir, this one's for you. Welcome aboard!
About the Author :
Renee Garrison is a former reporter for The Tampa Tribune and the past president of the Florida Authors & Publishers Association. She has written two award-winning Young Adult books and traces her love for mysteries back to her early devotion to Nancy Drew books. She grew up spending summers on Cape Cod, where her love affair with coastal towns began, and moved to Florida before Walt Disney ever arrived. Robert Garrison is a fifth generation Floridian whose love of the water began early-he earned his first boat at twelve by trading lawn mowing work for the hull that set his course. After a successful career in finance, he spent nearly a decade as the harbormaster of a marina on Florida's East Coast, a role that deepened his connection to the tides and the people who live by them. He's never happier than when he's on the water or close enough to smell the salt in the air.
Review :
Book Life
This is not another conventional mystery set against an exotic backdrop. Baxter-who visits strip clubs, meets with forensics experts, and traces phone calls during his bouts of amateur sleuthing-is a man deeply involved in the fragile ecosystem of the marina, allowing the setting to become as important as the crime itself. The Harbormaster was inspired by real events, and the Garrisons write with obvious affection for boating communities and marina life, filling the novel with lived-in details about storms, fuel docks, maintenance work, and the unpredictability of life spent near water.
Despite its grisly central crime, The Harbormaster ultimately evokes a genuine sense of warmth and community. Baxter's loving and playful relationship with his wife, Harri, gives the novel an emotional core, while the eccentric dockside characters provide humor and charm. There's something infectious about the calm energy with which Baxter moves through the novel's events. Even after the mystery is solved, what lingers is not the sensational details of the crime, but the desire to inhabit this unhurried world for a little while longer.
Readers' Favorite
Authors Renee and Robert Garrison offer fans of detective thrillers a tantalizing tale of murder and mystery in The Harbormaster. This is an engrossing yarn with multiple intertwining threads that make sure the reader is hooked until the very last pages. It's very difficult to guess the culprit. I think that's a hallmark of a captivating sleuth mystery, which this novella absolutely is. I loved the character interactions, especially the conversations between Baxter and Harri. Readers will love the entertaining dialogue. I felt like it enhanced the characters' personalities and made them seem all the more dynamic. I enjoyed the subtle humor and witty back-and-forths between the characters. All in all, The Harbormaster is a riveting novella for murder mystery readers.
