Donald Bain. Trouble at High Tide. New York: New American Library, 2011. Print. Murder, She Wrote.

I once had a teacher who was a mystery buff. She would speed-read mystery stories at the rate of a dozen a week or more. She would travel around the halls of the university  with a shopping cart full of books. She had her school-related books and notebooks in the cart, too, but most of them were mysteries.

She probably would have read every one of the Murder, She Wrote mysteries if she is still reading. This was my first one. I confess that I have never seen the TV show. The last time I lived in a place that received NBC was 1968: no Cosby Show, no Seinfeld—well, once or twice I saw a Seinfeld episode when I was visiting someone.

I thought of this teacher because she had learned most of the formulas and wanted to see how soon into the book she could solve the mystery. Trouble at High Tide was very formulaic. It truly was a lot like watching a TV show. It might have lasted a little more than 43 minutes, but at the end all the loose ends are tied up—except possibly for protagonist Jessica Fletcher’s love life. But isn’t that like a television series?

Mystery writer Fletcher goes to visit an acquaintance in Bermuda. Her friend is a Federal judge in New Jersey who owns some beach front property in Bermuda. Her first night there the judge hosts a party where nobody appears to like any of the other guests. One of the guests, the judge’s niece, is murdered that night on the beach. Jessica noses around and helps solve the crime.

The story is complicated by the fact that a serial killer has killed three prostitutes from the Dominican Republic on the island in Jack the Ripper fashion. The murder of the niece is made to look like another “Ripper” murder, but no one except some members of the press is fooled. Probably the most interesting character is the Scotland Yard profiler who solves the Ripper murders. Not only is he an effective profiler but a true Ripperologist whose hobby is studying the Victorian original.

Even though Trouble at High Tide is a murder mystery, it is fairly light reading. I am sure my old professor would have had the murder figured out by chapter six (the murder was not discovered until chapter four). It is a formulaic story with few surprises. Dare I say it is a beach read?

A warning. The one actual surprise in the story comes from a cryptic note written on the inside back cover of a paperback book owned by the victim. The note says something about Fairy Fay. We never find out why the victim chose that name. Fay in Middle and Early Modern  English meant “fairy,” as in Morgan le Fay from the King Arthur legends. But Fairy Fay also refers to the dropped girlfriend in the American folk song “Polly Wolly Doodle.” Reading the book, I could not get the song’s somewhat annoying chorus out of my head:

Fare thee well, fare thee well,
Fare thee well, my fairy Fay,
For I’m goin’ to Lou’siana
For to see my Susie Anna;
Sing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day.