A millionaire father, a daughter who has been polished to someday take over her father's company and a business merger about to take place at the Inn at Ocean's Edge starts the story.

A long-time widower's dementia and inability to care for himself is escalating, a daughter who has given up her dream of a career to play caregiver and a son who has escaped to the coast guard to avoid being trapped in a life not of his choosing soon enter the story. Then it gets messy.

A murder, a missing child, a missing wife and mother and several attempts at murder bring to light a string of lies, cover-ups and deceitful, selfish behavior that affect (as it seemed to this reader) nearly everyone on the island. Geez, was no one immune?

This story is full of multiple plots, twists and turns that at times were a bit too farfetched, mighty coincidental and just inconceivable to me. If you can set aside the implausible actions of characters, it could be construed to be a good mystery. I just had difficulty understanding the paths taken by family members in the book and the sheer blindness of others. I also felt the story switched gears in midstream. The last third of the book seemed to draw in a strong religious feel to it that was absolutely missing in the first two-thirds of it. Was it supposed to be a story about faith or were references to faith inserted in order to get it a "Christian book" category? I found that rather confusing and felt the concept should have been transparent throughout or forgotten.

It was an entertaining story but unbelievable to me on so many levels that, for once, I am left without a personal take-away from a story unless it would be "honesty is always the best practice"; therefore I felt compelled to write an honest review.