Coral Reef Views

Ashley Grant is a paramedic in the Victoria and Albert Islands. She lives on Grand Victoria Island and her parents, Donna and Frank, are visiting her after her father’s recent retirement from the plumbing business. Frank is looking for anything to do besides sit on the beach. Once he’s introduced to Ashley’s friend who works at the resort where her parents are staying, he quickly volunteers his skills to fix up the underpar plumbing. During his time, Frank meets a new friend, Paul Saunders.

Frank is to meet Paul the next day, but after repeated calls and notes left on his door, Paul still hasn’t contacted Frank. Concerned, Frank asks Ashley to use her work connections with the local hospital and the police to see if she can find out anything regarding Paul. Unfortunately, she doesn’t turn anything up. Frank is still curious about Paul’s whereabouts, especially since his wife died only a few months ago and Paul kept telling Frank that he was there to get justice for her.

During an EMS call later on, Ashley and her partner are called to Smuggler’s Beach to retrieve a body. When Ashley sees the body, she confirms that it’s the body of Paul Saunders! Ashley tells Sergeant Westbrook that she met Paul and that he was a new friend of her father’s. Ashley mentions that Paul recently lost his wife to cancer, and both of them consider the possibility that Paul could have committed suicide.

Ashley breaks the news to her dad. Frank doesn’t believe for one minute that Paul killed himself and is now more curious than ever to find out what really happened. On Saturday morning, Frank contacts the taxi company and gets Henry, Paul’s driver from the day he disappeared, to take him to Paul’s last stop: Island Jewelers. Ashley rides with him. When the store opens, Frank goes in and questions the clerk but doesn’t get any information from her. Frank leaves, but seeing a local plumber parked on the street, he decides to try his luck there. It turns out that Tony the plumber was actually working in the jewelry store the day Paul was there asking questions. Apparently, Paul was pressing the clerk, Catherine, to give up the owner’s home address, but she wouldn’t budge and threatened to call the police. Tony warns Frank about looking into things too far because of who owns Island Jewelers and his family’s connections. With this new information, Ashley calls her police contact to let him know there may be more to this case than originally thought.

Ashley makes additional inquiries from her friend, Darlene, who was renting a place to Paul. She says that in their conversations, she learned that his wife died and that he was sad. Darlene also gave some information about Island Jewelers including the name of its owner, Claude Erasmus. It turns out that Claude Erasmus is very well-known on the island and that his business extends to property development and other interests - many of which are less than ethical.

It doesn’t take long for Frank to find things out on his own. He calls Henry to take him to the Erasmus mansion. Of course, the security guards won’t let him in, but Mrs. Erasmus comes down to speak with Frank and reports that she knows nothing. Frank continues to ask some of the neighbour’s workers about seeing Paul and gets some details about how furious Paul was, but that’s it. Later, Ashley calls her police friend and finds out that information is building around Paul’s suspicious death. Frank can’t stand the fact that they’re going to have to go home soon and his friend’s death is still unsolved!

The next morning, Ashley learns that her parents have come up with a plan to send Donna to Island Jewelers under the guise of buying custom jewelry while really looking to see if the jewels are fakes! Ashley and Donna take a cab to the store and, after meeting with the clerk and Mrs. Erasmus, who is the store’s custom jewelry designer, Donna doesn’t see the fake jewelry they were expecting.

As a last hope effort, Donna calls Mrs. Erasmus, pretending to order her ring, but instead, confronts her, accusing her of killing Paul. Donna attempts to call her bluff and threatens to go to the police unless she pays $50,000.00. Mrs. Erasmus is caught off guard, but agrees to meet at Smuggler’s Point.

Frank, Donna, and Ashley drive in the rain-soaked night to Smuggler’s Point. Before they leave, they call the police to meet them there as they suspect the worst. Through the rain, Frank sees Mrs. Erasmus and gets out of the car to meet her. From the car, Ashley and Donna see what Frank does not - a man circling behind Frank! Mrs. Erasmus turns to leave while the man continues towards Frank. Ahsley jumps out of the car and ends up wrestling on the ground with Mrs. Erasmus. The police arrive and arrest Mrs. Erasmus. The man with her is her bodyguard, but it’s not him they police want to question. They take Mrs. Erasmus to the station, and, although she calls her husband’s lawyer, the lawyer refuses to represent her. Her husband has finally cut her off because he’s tired of her infidelity.

Further investigation reveals that Paul had previously bought his wife a custom broach, but Mrs. Erasmus gave him a fake. Paul confronted her, and she most likely killed him. Also, it turns out Mrs. Erasmus had quite the side business dealing in fake jewelry, probably because she also knew her marriage was nearly over. With all this revealed, Frank feels that he’s solved the case for Paul and agrees to fly home with Donna. Ashley feels better knowing things are nearly wrapped up and that her parents will have a safe trip home.

Delany’s crime novel weaves an intricate story in few pages. The plot is believable, but there are some points that ask readers to suspend belief for the sake of connecting multiple plot points. However, this does not detract from the fun of this crime investigation story that involves several entertaining characters including the father, Frank, who starts the plot climbing. Coral Reef Views would be a great text for someone that enjoys a story with ample suspense and a quickly tied up ending.