BOOKMONGER
Astoria is featured in promising new series
It’s officially beach read
season and I have a good mur-
der mystery for those of you
who embrace the whole sandy
towel/beach umbrella/cold
drink scenario.
Nichelle Seely, an Asto-
ria-based architect and mem-
ber of the city’s Design
Review Commission, has
turned her hand to writing
fiction.
“A Memory of Murder” fea-
turing investigator Audrey
Lake and a series set in Asto-
ria, is her fine debut.
Audrey is a prematurely
retired undercover detective
with the Denver Police Depart-
ment. In her last deep under-
cover assignment, when she
posed as drug addict Zoe
Crenshaw to infiltrate a major
drug ring, her alter ego began
inhabiting her psyche.
On top of that, Audrey
experiences occasional hallu-
cinatory episodes.
Whether any of this was
triggered by the drugs she
had to ingest to maintain her
undercover identity is up for
question, but the culminating
bust on that assignment was
a violent melee that left her
physically injured and emo-
tionally traumatized. Her hos-
pital stay and a doctor’s pre-
scription of anxiety meds are
no cure for the nightmares that
continue to haunt her.
This week’s book
‘A Memory of Murder’ by
Nichelle Seely
Paperback $12.99; Kindle $4.99
When Audrey inherits an
old house in Astoria, she beats
a hasty retreat out of Denver,
hoping that Oregon will give
her a chance to vanquish the
past. Flushing her pills down
the toilet of the fixer-upper
she finds waiting for her is a
bold first step in declaring her
intentions — but Zoe’s voice
in Audrey’s head continues to
pop up at inopportune times.
Next, Audrey has a vivid
hallucination that features
a woman who later is found
drowned in the river. Audrey
worries that she may still be
suffering from psychosis.
But when local police chalk
the death up as accidental, she
feels something is profoundly
wrong. Her hallucination sug-
gested foul play was involved.
She undertakes her own inves-
tigation of the circumstances.
Seely does a nice job of
describing both the physical
landscape and the ambiance of
Astoria.
Likewise, she ably com-
bines the notions that an
investigator’s work depends
on fact-finding, but it also
involves intuitive work. Of
course, Audrey’s psychological
aberrations seem to take this to
the extreme — or do they?
The pacing of this story
slows towards the book’s end
when, due to the extrasensory
element, the whodunit reveal
takes place rather awkwardly
before the final confrontation.
But the author has been so
thoughtful in creating a cast
of dimensional characters that
you’re likely to forgive that.
Audrey is well fleshed-out;
sympathetic but complicated;
and she’s contending with per-
sonal problems that may never
be neatly tied up with a bow.
Her developing reliance on
her next-door neighbor and her
rocky start with the skeptics
at the local cop shop have the
potential to grow in interesting
ways in succeeding books in
this series.
And that occasional voice in
her head — Zoe’s unvarnished
commentary — is an intriguing
wild card that’s bound to stick
around for a while.
“A Memory of Murder” is a
harbinger of more good titles
to come.
The Bookmonger is Barbara
Lloyd McMichael, who writes
this weekly column focusing
on the books, authors and pub-
lishers of the Pacific North-
west. Contact her at bar-
baralmcm@gmail.com.
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