The fictional town of Eagle Bay, Oregon is beautiful and thriving—largely thanks to the men of the Westbrooke family. In 1986, young Thomas Westbrooke is already making a name for himself in the same vein as his father, Robert. When his best friend, the equally loved and lauded John McCloud, finds photographic evidence that their two families have been close friends for generations, he assumes the surprising revelation will please Thomas as much as it pleased him. But it doesn’t; in fact, it terrifies Thomas, leading him to brutally murder his best friend.
This is how Ken Cruickshank’s EAGLE BAY opens, and the rest of the book sees Thomas simultaneously attempting to atone for his crime and protect his own interests. He woos and marries John’s young widow, Skye, and adopts their two young children. He gives them everything they could ever hope for, all while carefully sweeping John’s past influence out of their lives. Thomas’s father Robert hovers in the background, a constant reminder of the Westbrooke family’s true interests: the mysterious “assets,” items of great value hidden away from all but the Westbrooke men. However, the charade can only go on for so long, and soon the cracks begin to show. As Skye witnesses her once loving husband turning dark, she begins to uncover his many crimes—old and new. But how can she fight back against a man who has the whole town in his pocket?
EAGLE BAY is a soap opera in novel form: a narrative following generations of treachery, lies, and deceit. The nature of the Westbrooke “assets” is hinted at lightly throughout, and seems to have almost a supernatural hold on the narrative and the family’s men in particular. Overall the story is enticing, growing even more so as it turns from a series of events to an examination of Thomas’s downfall. There’s something very classical about Thomas’s story: his corruption at the hands of his father, eventually leading him down a path where he orchestrates and perpetuates his own downfall. This is the most intriguing aspect of the story, overshadowing even the mystery of the Westbrooke family’s “assets.”
While the story itself is strong and engaging, the dialogue occasionally borders on melodramatic. Much of the characters’ thoughts and feelings is quite literally told rather than shown, which can take the reader out of the moment on occasion. That said, the prose around the dialogue does a lot of heavy lifting, keeping the story rolling to a fulfilling (but still open-ended) conclusion.
Ken Cruickshank’s EAGLE BAY is a roller-coaster of a read–a strong story that plunges deep into the psyche of villains and heroes in the making. With unexpected twists and turns in each chapter, it will leave readers guessing right up until the end.
~Kara Dennison for IndieReader