Click Here To Purchase MARGOT CRANSTON The Secret of the St. Lawrence Lighthouse

Author: David W. Menefee

Publisher: CreateSpace

ISBN-10: 1461153492:  ISBN-13: 978-1461153498

“Are we in a baffling web of mystery and intrigue?” Andy asked. “If so, how can I help? As long as I can still enjoy some sunbathing and my date tonight, I’m up for it!”

Since 2003, prolific author David W. Menefee has published a series of non-fiction books detailing the early years of cinema, including biographies of Sarah Bernhardt and Richard Barthelmess and studies like The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era and the companion volume, The First Male Stars: The Men of the Silent Era. In 2011, Menefee expanded his horizons and launched a new fiction series with three titles following hot on each other’s publication—Margo Cranston: The Mystery at Loon Lake, Margo Cranston: The Quest for the jade Dragons, and Margo Cranston: The Secret of the St. Lawrence Lighthouse.

Judging from the last entry, Menefee’s fiction is heavily indebted to the movies he’s enjoyed and studied so much over the years. The St. Lawrence story opens with tropes familiar to anyone who’s ever enjoyed an old-fashioned mystery—in short order, it’s clear the perky, pretty Margo Cranston is a well-known amateur detective (a la The Saint) whom everyone recognizes as soon as they hear her name. In fact, the moment a fellow passenger on a flight hears her name, he scowls and quickly changes his seat to get away from her. On the plane, Margo and her constant companions—her niece Amy and nephew Andy--read about a mysterious ghost at a St. Lawrence lighthouse, and it doesn’t take long for Margo to start getting warnings to stay away from that lighthouse. While the Cranstons tour St. Lawrence, they’re tailed by a mysterious stranger, start seeing a mysterious woman in black, get attacked by wolves, encounter a doppelganger for Margo, and all this during what was supposed to be a two-day trip. Had all these baddies stayed quiet, odds are Ms. Cranston’s curiosity would never have been aroused. But what would be the fun in that?

Of course, fun is what this book is all about. After Cranston’s party goes on a cruise ship, they attend a costume ball; you know something nasty always accompanies a ball where costumes disguise the innocent and guilty alike. Someone is going to get thrown overboard. There are a pile of coincidences with passengers on the trip learning their homes are being robbed in their absence. So there’s a connection between someone on the ship, a travel agency, and the robberies—but how do the burglars know where and what to look for?

It all comes together in a convoluted plot involving a criminal mastermind using old technology so not to be traceable, and this old tech is aided by bats, tunnels, locking Margo in an attic, and dark and stormy nights. Clearly, this is the sort of story not intended to tease the mind or involve the reader in a multi-layered narrative. It’s pure diversionary romance sketched in celluloid black-and-white. If you like this sort of serial, well, the saga has only begun—