The Corpse with the Pearly Smile is the 14th book in the globetrotting Cait Morgan series by Cathy Ace. Cait Morgan is a Welsh-Canadian professor of criminal psychology. Her husband Bud Anderson is a retired cop. Their combined skill set and experience make them a highly effective crime-solving duo. This is helpful when Cait has a close encounter with a floating corpse while they are on vacation in Tahiti.
Cathy Ace’s fascination with Tahiti is evident as she carefully weaves interesting details about Tahitian culture, history and economy throughout the book. Everything, including small details about what the characters eat and drink at the hotel reinforce the South Pacific setting, which in turn aligns closely with the plot.
Cait and Bud have been staying in an over-water bungalow at a luxurious Tahitian resort. Henri Legrand and his wife Fleur are the owners of the Legrand Resort. Henri is a former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was a colleague of Bud’s. Hence, he invited Bud and Cait to be test guests at the hotel prior to its official opening. Henri and Fleur are seeking their feedback about the hotel while the staff are setting up the other bungalows and testing menus.
Staying at the resort feels like paradise, until a man floating face down bumps into Cait while she is having her morning dip in the lagoon. She screams for help and begins to pull the body towards the beach. There is no doubt that the handsome young man is dead.
Mahana, the resort manager is able to identify the corpse as the son of a friend of hers. His name is Vaiarii Teriimana. In his teens, he was a famous pearl diver. As an adult, he became a model for Ducasse Pearls, a company owned by his fiancée’s father. Diving for pearls is challenging and requires very strong swimming skills – so how could someone with his swimming abilities drown in a shallow lagoon?
Vai had participated in a photoshoot at the hotel a couple of weeks prior. His behaviour at the time seems to have stirred up tension amongst the staff at the resort. Henri and Fleur are understandably concerned that a death at the resort before their official opening might hurt business.
Sonny, a Sous-Lieutenant with the police arrives to retrieve the body. The death is being treated as an accidental drowning but the mystery of how Vai ended up at the hotel grows when Cait and Bud learn that at three in the morning, Sonny had to intervene when Vai had an altercation with a tourist in a local bar. Sonny drove Vai home from the bar, so how did Vai end up on the resort, which is at a remote location?
Things get even more complicated when Vai’s grieving fiancée shows up. CeeCee Ducasse is an influencer with over a million followers. Henri and Fleur were originally excited about CeeCee posting images of their hotel from her and Vai’s earlier visit. Her new focus worries them. CeeCee wants Troy, her videographer and assistant to film her crying at the scene of Vai’s death. These are not the images that will create more bookings for the hotel.
When another incident happens at the hotel, Fleur asks Cait and Bud to begin an informal investigation. They agree to chat with the staff along with the newest people to join the group, CeeCee’s father and Vai’s mother. Sonny has also returned to the hotel with instructions to keep an eye on things until a more senior officer can get there. Bad weather has resulted in a traffic accident that has temporarily blocked the road. At this point, the book shifts into full Agatha Christie mode.
The Corpse with the Pearly Smile is a cosy closed-circle mystery, set on an island with a limited number of suspects. Much like Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Cait observes and questions everyone around her. After chatting with the staff at the hotel, she realises that she doesn’t know everyone as well as she thought.
Cait has to reassess her initial impressions. Fortunately, she has an eidetic memory which allows her short term memory to hold large amounts of information which Cait can process much faster than others. Once she has completed her process, she and Bud discuss her findings. Part of the enjoyment of this set-up is to see if you can identify the guilty party and the motive before that information is shared with you. This can be a challenge as Ace does leave red herrings throughout the book.
Like all Christie murder mysteries, the big reveal comes at the end when all of the suspects are gathered together. Bud sums things up nicely when he says that sometimes paradise is not what it’s cracked up to be. This series is ideal for crime fiction readers who enjoy travelling vicariously through their reading. Every book in the series is set in a different location.
To learn more about Cathy Ace and her other books, you can read these previous reviews on Crime Fiction Lover.
Four Tails Publishing
Print/Kindle
£3.79
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
Great read!