Vital Spark by Leah Devlin

Vital Spark by Leah Devlin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Having secured a new job as a fisheries biologist at a marine station in the Upper Chesapeake Bay, Alexandra Allaway finally comes home to her grandfather and his best friend – the two men who’ve raised her since she was a baby. Instead of a happy reunion, the friend has vanished and her grandfather has been murdered. Clutched in Randy Allaway’s hand is an old gold coin. She also finds an old map with three dots and a message to tell no one and that someone named JAllaway might come.

Unable to stay in the house, Alex bunks in her grandfather’s tugboat, Vital Spark. Her companion is a misbehaving, over-exuberant nuisance, a dog whom she calls “Water Boy.” Long after Alex falls asleep, a noise awakens her. Emerging from the cabin, she sees a slender woman dressed in white whispering to Water Boy. When the intruder spots Alex, she dives overboard and vanishes.

Once the police arrive, Alex heeds the warning to keep silent. Detective Jay Braden leads the investigation, but personal problems at home soon require more of his attention and his partner, Detective Will Jenkins, must spend more time with Alex. She’s uncertain how she feels about this, since her acquaintanceship with Will dates back to their high school days. On one hand – the one that dropped the eraser down the back of her jeans – he’s a jerk; on the other, he’s attractive and she remembers the one night they spent together a long time ago.

Each year around this time, her hometown of River Glen stages its annual pirate festival. According to legend, the infamous pirate Giles Blood-hand sailed up the Chesapeake and buried his treasure here. As far as Alex knows, no one has ever found the legendary gold, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t still looking for it. Against her better judgment, but at a friend’s urging, Alex dons pirate regalia and attends the festival. While there, she meets Carly, Will’s five-year-old daughter. Carly is the only good thing to come out of his relationship with his manipulative ex-wife. Carly loves playing “pirate” and innocently remarks that Alex looks just like Giles Blood-hand’s sister.

Alex works to puzzle out the clues left to her while the police investigate not only her grandfather’s death and friend’s disappearance, but also the murder of another woman bearing a marked resemblance to Alex. Disparate threads unravel to reveal an intricately interconnected web whose origins date back to Giles Blood-hand, and with ties to a twenty-six-year-old unsolved murder.

The first entry in the Chesapeake Tugboat Murders series, Vital Sparks keeps you guessing until the very end. The book is populated with a host of characters similar to a circus sideshow, enriching the story and making your visit to River Glen memorable. Devlin deftly weaves science, history, pirate lore, romance, and mystery into a remarkable tale with serpentine twists and a final showdown that promises more puzzling mysteries to come. Her Giles Blood-hand Wikipedia entry seems authentic, but it’s as much a figment of her imagination as this delightful cast of characters and thrilling romantic suspense.




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