Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:    Dark Tide

AUTHOR:     Greg Herren

PUBLISHER:  Bold Strokes Books

LENGTH:     264 Pages

BLURB:

For Ricky Hackworth, a summer job to save money before he leaves for college is a necessity. When he lands a job as a lifeguard at the Mermaid Inn in Latona, Alabama, on the beautiful Gulf Coast, it’s like a dream come true. But once he moves into the Inn, he starts hearing stories about the lifeguard from the previous summer…and how he vanished without a trace right in the middle of the summer. Before long, Ricky realizes the Inn and the town are hiding some dark secrets…secrets someone is willing to kill to protect, and Ricky has to find out the truth before he, too, vanishes without a trace.

REVIEW:

This is my first book by Greg Herren, but it definitely won’t be my last! I really liked this mystery, and didn’t know whodunit until almost the last page of the book.

Ricky Hackworth needs a summer job to save up some money for his freshman year at Alabama State. He has a scholarship for swimming, but it isn’t enough to make ends meet. He applies for a job at an Inn on a bay off the Gulf of Mexico in a small town called Latona, Alabama, which he doesn’t get. But luck is on his side, and the guy who got the job quit before the season started, so the job was offered to Ricky.

Things are strange in Latona though. Why do at least a couple guys have the same merman tattoo, and why are there no tourists? Even stranger, once he gets settled, he finds out that the guy who had the job the previous year, Zach, disappeared without a trace, leaving his car, clothes, and everything else behind.

Since the very first night at Mermaid Inn, Ricky has been having extremely vivid nightmares about carnivorous mermen. Then at the local library he finds a book by a local historian which details the strange disappearances over the years in and around where the town of Latona now sits. The Native Americans had tales of Merfolk, the French colonist’s expedition to the area disappeared without a trace, some pirates disappeared without a trace, and a whole lot of young men seem to have disappeared without a trace. Where did they go? And is Ricky next?  Are there really carnivorous mermen living under the bay?

There is a major plot twist somewhere in the middle of the book which involves Ricky, which I didn’t see coming at all. It was like….really? Then pieces of the puzzle started to come together in my mind.

I loved this book. It was very well written and edited. I suspected several people held the clues to what happened to Zach, but like I said I wasn’t sure until almost the last page.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good m/m related mystery. There isn’t any direct sex in the book, so if that is important to you, you should move on, but otherwise, give it a shot. I think you’ll love it like I did!

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Bold Strokes Books  

Amazon