RAZOR BEACH MYSTERIES BOOK ONE
The Sandcastle: Lot 47
By Ellis Glass - Detective Margaret Voss - Longfellow Point
A six-year-old building a sandcastle found him at the tide line. Two tides had already come in over him.
Owen Brace had appraised property on this coast for 31 years and had never once filed a number he couldn't defend at the recorder's counter in Ukiah. On a Friday morning in late June, he walked down to Lot 47, North Razor, to finish three weeks of work and put $4.27 million on a parcel somebody else had valued at $1.1 million.
He had two corners left to verify when he heard footsteps coming down the access trail, unhurried, the pace of a man who had come to do a particular thing. Owen stood up on his own time, faced north, and said the true sentence he'd been carrying in his chest for three weeks: "I thought you might come."
By Saturday morning, Detective Margaret Voss is standing at the high-tide line looking at a man buried to his neck in the sand, and at a six-year-old who thought, at first, that he was a sandcastle somebody else had built.
The question isn't who wanted an appraisal buried. It's how many people were counting on the number staying wrong, and which of them was willing to let the ocean do the rest.
READ THE OPENING
The scenery along the road to Razor Beach at 6:00 a.m. in late June was spectacular, and one that Owen Brace never tired of driving. He had been working this part of the coast for 31 years and could drive it in his sleep, if that were possible.
The man came on at the same unhurried pace. 20 yards. 15 yards. Then 10 yeards. He stopped at eight. Neither man spoke for a beat. The Pacific kept its steady, even breathing behind them.
Format - eBook (EPUB), DRM-free)
Price - $7.99
Published - August 18, 2026
Length - 266 pages - 66,00 words
Series - Razor Beach Mysteries, Book 2