Carolina Moonset

Carolina Moonset opens with protagonist Joey Green returning to his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina. His father, Marshall, is beginning to really struggle with early signs of Lewy Body Dementia, a condition that effectively erases his short-term memory. That challenge has worn out Joey's healthy mother, and he comes home to be with his dad and to lend her a hand so that she can take a brief but much needed vacation.

Shortly after Joey's arrival, a prominent local businessman named Thomas Hammond is found murdered, and the central plot of the story kicks into high gear. Marshall Green has no love lost for the victim, and his diminished mental state and loss of short-term memory cause him to publicly (and repeatedly) celebrate that this person is no longer alive. The police begin to ask themselves, "Could Marshall Green possibly be a suspect? And is his short-term memory really as bad as he makes it seem to be?" He seems to have motive, and there are holes in his alibi for the night in question.

Suddenly, Joey is left trying to keep his ailing father out of jail, and the only way he can think to do so is to find the actual killer. As Joey searches for others in the small community who may know something or have reason to want Hammond dead, he begins to unearth long-buried town secrets.

At a scant 264 pages, this is a quick read, and one you could easily knock out in a day. It has a lot of good things going for it -- a fairly nuanced plot, interesting characters, and unique take on the unreliable suspect. There are some parts of the novel that didn't fully come together for me (Joey's rapid relationship with his parents' neighbors' daughter, for one), but overall the unraveling of the mystery was well-paced and the conclusion satisfying. Worth a read.