Dawn Lee McKenna: Review of her books by Warren Bull

 Dawn Lee McKenna: Review of her books by Warren Bull

My brilliant wife turned me on to Dawn Lee McKenna’s books recently and I am intrigued by the author. Between 2014 and 2019 she self-published at least eighteen books. Either ten or twelve were in the Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Novel series. Two books are apparently only available as ebooks. She also wrote other series and standalone novels. 

Although prolific, that does not mean she wrote them all the year they were released. In an interview, she said she should have started publishing them in 2011. I could not find anything published later than 2019.

I remember reading an article some years ago about author Fletcher Flora that described his entire writing career and listed all of his books. I also remember that I had a book Flora wrote on my bookshelf that was not listed in the article. We writers are not easy to keep track of. I found an obituary for Dawn (not Lee) McKenna who turned out to be someone else. I found an abandoned website and a Facebook post in 2012 before my wife – Did I mention she was brilliant? – located sources who mourned the writer’s passing in 2021.

Her work is well worth seeking out.  She has mastered a number of elements that kept me reading through the forgotten coast series. The setting is Apalachicola, Florida which is on the panhandle of the state. For me, and probably for most people this is somewhere I have never been. It sounds delightful, like a small town that has avoided tourist traps and retained an ambiance all its own. It has an ocean coast along the Gulf of Mexico, the Ochlockonee and Apalachicola Rivers, a cypress swamp, Saint George Island and, when nature feels annoyed, hurricanes. 

The people and businesses are so realistically depicted that I believe I could Identify them if I passed them on the street in Apalachicola. McKenna adds a local dog breed, the Catahoula Parish Leopard Hound. The local geography includes Tate’s Hell Forrest and Leon Sinks Geological Area with underwater caves. (Lots of cool places to hide a body.)

McKenna makes good use of the weather, ocean tides, and other natural phenomena to leave the reader shivering or trying to breathe as the water rises. 

In the multi-book series, there are overarching themes that move from book to book. Will Maggie Redmond, the heroine, Lieutenant in the Franklin County Sherriff’s Department, ever get together with the hunk of a Sherriff who is her boss? What is the magnetic attraction she feels to the crime boss and possibly the most dangerous man in the state of Florida? How will her past victimization affect her ability to work on cases involving circumstances like those that she experienced? Having several themes gives the reader several reasons to look for the next book.

McKenna reminded me of Sue Grafton in her development of side characters. There are few if any one-dimensional minor characters. When the Sherriff interviews two sisters who were witnesses to a crime, rather than simply giving hints and red herrings, the author creates a memorable interaction that allows her to slide tidbits of information into an engrossing scene.

McKenna one-ups Grafton by making animals as fully developed as humans. 

I enjoyed the progression of the author’s writing chops from book to book. She definitely managed to set the hook earlier and more deeply as the series progressed. The first four short books could stand together as one novel. It took me one or two days at most to whizz through any of the books. 

I would like to have met her. From her work I almost feel that I have, I am now on a quest to see if I can discover what else she has written and where copies of her work are lurking.  I give this series and this author my highest recommendation.