In this third mystery of the Bea Rivers series, Bea travels from the Sonoran Desert in full bloom to coastal California, where she has been invited to a small botanical garden conference in exclusive La Jolla. After a tense evening meal, the host director falls from 300-foot cliffs to the beach below.
The police declare the death to be either a suicide or a murder. The victim, Bea’s college friend, Paige Pearson, had something urgent to tell Bea right before her death. Determined to find out what happened to her friend, Bea conducts interviews and not-so-legal evidence gathering.
It seems that many of the people Bea had just been dining with had good reasons to wish Paige gone. The tension between La Jolla’s über-haves and the disgruntled have-nots who serve them lays an uncomfortable pall over the group.
Author Kris Neri comments, “This mystery builds to a stunning climax that ramps the stakes higher than the coastal palm trees swaying in the ocean breezes. Crime on the Coast will keep you guessing.”
The book is set primarily on the foggy coast of southern California. Long beach walks and immersion in the marine environment and its coastal flora provide relief from the tension for both Bea and the reader. This book is a classic mystery, providing some therapeutic puzzle-solving in tense times.
…is a retired botanical garden executive director and nonprofit professional who now delights in using the right side of her brain to write fiction. The first two books in her Bea Rivers botanical garden mystery series won several awards, including the New Mexico-Arizona and New Mexico Book Awards for Cozy Mystery. The third Bea Rivers novel, Crime on the Coast, was released on February 24, 2026.
Marty and her husband divide their time between Tucson and the small mountain town of Silver City, NM, enjoying the flora, fauna, wild areas and wild characters of both.
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