Shore Excursion
(Sidney Marsh Mystery #1)
Travel agents are a vanishing breed, but Sidney Marsh, a New York transplant from Mississippi, is holding her ground--at least on land. She is the tour leader on a cruise through Scandinavia for a group of eccentric senior citizens who call themselves the High Steppers. Sidney expects her days to be filled with long meals, shopping expeditions and visits to museums, churches and fjords. But this cruise is anything but routine. There is a killer on board, targeting the High Steppers and quite possibly herself.
After the first suspicious death, the captain and his crew are grimly determined to carry on as usual. Disgusted with their inaction, Sidney decides to take matters into her own hands and launch her own investigation. She enlists the halfhearted help of her friend and business partner, the flamboyant and fun-loving Jay Wilson. Suspects abound. What about those two handsome young men who stay mysteriously aloof? One of them has his eye on Sidney. So does another passenger, far too charming and again too young to fit the "High Stepper" mold. Then there's Captain Vargos, the arrogant ladies' man whose plans to thwart Sidney's investigation might include seduction.
Who is that crew member shadowing Sidney? Is the theater really haunted? Even the High Steppers themselves are not as predictable or harmless as they seem. The closer Sydney gets to the truth, the less she understands. Shore Excursion is the first book in a new mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Sidney Marsh.
Marie Moore Bio:
Shore Excursion is Marie Moore’s first novel, but not her first writing experience, and like Sidney Marsh, she is a native Mississippian. She graduated from Ole Miss, married a lawyer in her hometown, taught junior high science, raised a family, and worked for a small weekly newspaper, first as a writer and later as Managing Editor. She wrote hard news, features and a weekly column, sold ads, did interviews, took photos, and won a couple of MS Press Association awards for some of her stories.
In 1985, Marie left the newspaper to open a retail travel agency. She completed agency and computer training with Airlines Reporting Corporation, Delta Airlines and TWA, earned her CTC (Certified Travel Counselor) designation, and joined the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), International Air Transport Association (IATA), and Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). For the next 15 years, she managed her agency, sold travel, escorted group tours, sailed on 19 cruises, and visited over 60 countries. Much of the background of Shore Excursion comes from that experience.
Marie also did location scouting and worked as the local contact for several feature films, including Heart of Dixie, The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag, and Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune.
In mid-1999, because of her husband's work, Marie sold the travel agency and moved to Jackson, MS, then New York City, Anna Maria Island, FL, and Arlington, VA. She and her husband now live in Memphis, TN and Holly Springs, MS.
Marie is a member of Sisters in Crime.
~I received a complimentary ebook from Tribute Books in exchange for my review.~
My thoughts: This was a fun cozy mystery to read and you got to learn a little about a lot of foreign places on the way. You know how when you first start to read a book you begin to picture the characters in your head? For some reason, I was never able to do this with Sydney. She didn't seem to be hung up on her looks at all, but seemed to get her share of attention from the opposite sex and evidently cleaned up nicely. I just could never get a picture of her in my head!
At first there were a lot of characters because of all the High Steppers, but I quickly sorted out who was who. They seemed like they would be an interesting lot to travel with, with all of their quirkiness.
I thought that I had it all figured out and that it was taking Sydney, with Jay's on again, off again help, an awfully long time to catch up to what was going on. But, as usual, I was wrong. I liked Sydney and the fact that she didn't really take herself too seriously. She enjoys her work as a travel agent and gets along well with the High Steppers, even though the majority of them are much older than herself. She trusts her instincts when it comes to men, and this usually lands her in hot water as her instincts are pretty fallible. I think this makes her a little less confident in her professional life than she should be. What she should do is trust her business instincts and question her personal ones!
All in all it was an enjoyable read and I would definitely read another Sydney Marsh mystery!
Publisher/Publication Date: Camel Press, April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60381-874-2
230 pages
