Mailboat Ⅰ The End of the Pier by: Danielle Lincoln Hanna

Here it is, the long awaited review of the first Mailboat book: Mailboat Ⅰ The End of the Pier. After first discovering this book in the recommended section of a Lake Geneva magazine, I took full interest in this suspense novel. Mailboat takes place in Geneva Lake, Wisconsin (also known as Lake Geneva, but Lake Geneva is one of the cities on the lake aside from Fontana and Williams Bay) a place that I have a lot of special memories tied to because a lot of my family lives there.

Mailboat is about a girl named Bailey who works on the mailboat. But when delivering the mail one day, she misses the boat and lands in the water, only to find a dead body tied to the pier. Bailey along with police officials and the captain of the mailboat Tommy get tied up in the mystery as they try to figure out the identity of the body, and who the murderer was. Before reading you should know two things. The first is that each chapter is from the perspective of a different character. Because of this, it can be a little confusing when it changes from one scene to a completely different one. Although, after all of the characters and their perspectives have been introduced, it becomes less confusing. 

The second thing you should know is what the mailboat is. The mailboat of Lake Geneva is a tour boat, that goes around the lake showing off the beautiful shoreline. But that's not the best part. The main thing about the mailboat is that it delivers mail, by boat. To deliver the mail, the mailboat gets close to the dock and the mail runner will jump off of the boat and onto the pier. Then then sprint to the mailbox located on the pier, put the mail in the box, and sprint back to the boat.

The important thing to note is that the boat never stops moving. It will slow down but won't stop. If you miss the boat or fall into the water then the boat will come back around to pick you up and then continue on. Multiple news and other channels have done stories on the mailboat and you can find some really cool videos on them. I linked two really good ones here:

https://youtu.be/Evgxn89259M (tryout news story video)

https://youtube.com/shorts/Vcqrve3HB8o?feature=share (mail jumper short)

The main thing I love about Mailboat Ⅰ is that there are so many callbacks to Lake Geneva things that only lake people would get. Aside from places mentioned such as the Lake Geneva Bar and Grill which I've been to, my favorite is the front of the house scenario. The "front of the house" always is the side that faces the lake, and the back is the side that faces away from the lake. This can be incredibly confusing sometimes because in some cases the front of the house looks like it would be the back and vice versa. I've called the back of the house the front many times and really started correcting it a few years ago. I love that this small detail is in the book and it adds the the fact that one character occasionally mixes up the two even though she lives there.

As this is only the first book in the 5 part series, not all things that were mentioned were evaluated on. The ending set up nicely to continue on to the next book. I'm pretty excited to continue reading this series. I love the story, the characters and how we see their stories unfold, and of course, the setting. It's very interesting so far and I can't wait to read the next one :)