Dead River - McCaid Paul Review

[vampiricprose]

Dead River by McCaid Paul

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dates read: 2/16/2025-2/18/2025

my boyfriend's grandmother told me to read this book so I guess I will....... eventually........

and I did!!!

In the Floridian panhandle, we follow our protagonist, seventeen-year-old Clayton Thomas, as he sells fish from his fishing adventures along the Choctawhatchee River. It's on one of these outings that Clayton finds a dead body and a vulnerable teenage girl alone on a houseboat. Shenanigans ensue.

The good thing about this book is that it's paced extremely well. I tore through this book in two sittings.

Before I get into some of the things I disliked about this book, I want to add a note here that this book is independently published, and that this fact is probably (most definitely ) why my grievances exist in this book.

Firstly, sometimes while reading this book, stylistic and word choice usage caused me to audibly cackle out loud due to how unserious it was, which is fine if that was the intended impact, but I could very plainly tell that it was not. An example:

"I shift on my foot too fast, and then I'm falling... f a l l i n g..."

Like okay purr mrshealy-irwin-iero.tumblr.com, serve tumblrina!

I am completely aware that this issue may have been eradicated if this was traditionally published (and why I'm not being more harsh and critical in my star rating) but I still wanted to mention it, because it threw off the whole tone of the rest of the book for me.

Another problem I had was that we had a very strong case of author's fiat (a plot device where something that works only because the author says it does. An example of this could be someone who goes around in a bright pink leotard but is a stealth specialist)* in this book.

There is a scene in this book, around page 12, where Clayton is arrested after being pulled over by an officer. The reasoning, you may ask? His passenger had an open container of alcohol, and when Clayton got pulled over, the passenger ran and left the open container.

Something many of you guys may not know about me is that I am currently studying to be a paralegal, and hopefully law school later down the line. As someone interested in law as a career, this sequence of events sounded entirely unrealistic to me. And so I hopped onto LexisNexis and Westlaw and did some research.

Under Florida law, specifically Florida Statutes § 316.1936, it is unlawful for any person to possess an open container of an alcoholic beverage while operating a vehicle or while a passenger in a vehicle being operated in the state. An open container is defined as any container of alcoholic beverage that is immediately capable of being consumed, or the seal of which has been broken. The statute further clarifies that an open container is considered to be in the possession of the operator of a vehicle if the container is not in the possession of a passenger and is not located in a locked glove compartment, locked trunk, or other locked non-passenger area of the vehicle.

If a passenger exits the vehicle in clear view of an officer, leaving behind a liquor bottle, and the driver's blood alcohol content tests negative for alcohol consumption, the driver could still be held liable under the open container law. This is because the open container would be considered in the possession of the driver if it is not in the physical control of a passenger and is not secured in a locked, non-passenger area of the vehicle. The law does not require the driver to have consumed alcohol to be in violation; mere possession of an open container in the vehicle is sufficient for liability.

However, this statute ALSO states that a violation of the open container law (Florida Statutes § 316.1936) is considered a noncriminal traffic infraction. Specifically, the driver would typically receive a ticket rather than be arrested.

The only reason Clayton would be arrested is if the officer had probable cause, such as if Calyton was showing signs of intoxication (which is not the case as written), if Clayton refused to comply with the officer’s instructions or became confrontational (which is not the case as written), or if there were other outstanding legal issues, such as outstanding warrants or driving with a suspended license (which is not the case as written).

Because of this whole snafu, it caused me to devalue the whole book overall and its sequences of events. Even though I had fun, I don't enjoy feeling like I have to double-check the legal basis of your book because something doesn't sound correct.

All that being said, I still had fun with this book. It reminded me of books by Riley Sager and Frieda McFadden (with ALL their many flaws and triumphs), and I think if you are not intimate with legal research, especially Florida-specific legal research, you could have a lot of fun with this book. :)

*Got help explaining from a comment that Satnav left on a "space battles" forum. Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threa...


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