It's time for another trip to Point and test the waters with another author. This time it's Richie Tankersly Cusick. A Louisiana-based author, she has roughly 25 books published, including several published under Scholastic's Point series. And given it's (Woo!) Party Summer, I think it's time to hit the beach, only problem is it might be quite the dangerous swim, cause I don't trust the guy guarding our lives. Why? Let's find out together with The Lifeguard.
We open with a quick prologue of our titular lifeguard having finished his deed. He killed another girl. He didn't want to do it, but she knew too much. We then go to our protagonist Kelsey Tanner on a boat, having a nightmare that involves someone telling her not to struggle and what seems to be her drowning. We learn that it's also got to do with her father, but we're super early, so it's vagueness ahoy. Kelsey and her mother Marjorie are on their way to visit Beverly Island where Ms. Tanner's boyfriend Eric Connell and his three kids live, for lack of a better term at the moment, but yes three kids. His daughter Beth, his honor student son Justin and Neale who... exists I guess. Kelsey talks with a young man named Skip Rochford on the boat who almost tells her some bad news before she ends up talking with her mom some more. Despite not wanting to go, and her hatred of the water given the incident, she still decides to give it a try. I mean, what could possibly go wrong in this teen horror novella?
But before they arrive, they get a call from a distressed Eric saying that Beth has gone missing. All that's left was her sandals and a bloody towel. Mrs. Tanner tries not to think the worst case and says maybe she staged it to run away, which Eric mentions that Beth had been with Skip for a while. Kelsey is confused, since Skip didn't seem too concerned on the boat. Justin shows up and, despite the clear case of, you know, his possibly dead sister, it seems like Justin and Kelsey are already a bit smitten. He takes her to Beth's room, which, you know, super uncomfortable being in a possibly dead girl's room, but Beth left messages awaiting Kelsey's arrival, which is nice. Justin, Neale and Skip are all lifeguards for the beach. He mentions that there are two beaches for swimming, and a conveniently rocky cliff area where you shouldn't swim. Dumping bodies though, go to town!
There's a private beach to the east where the richer folk stay, but they don't use it much, but still hire a lifeguard because paranoid rich folk. There's also the cove where Beth would usually go to be inspired given she wanted to be a writer. But that's bad apparently. Neale shows up and talks with Justin as Kelsey overhears. He's convinced that Beth died at the cove as it usually floods quite easily and if she didn't drown, the rocks did the trick. He's also not thrilled that Kelsey and her mom are here either. He's described as being tall, tan, and sinister looking. Maybe he's so tan from being an obvious red herring? Still early in the book to get that answer. The search is called off for the night, which upsets everyone obviously. The last person who could have seen her was Skip as he showed up earlier. Kelsey gets her mind off the situation by finding more notes from Kelsey. One that hoped they'd be friends (aww) and another where she thinks someone's trying to kill her (ohhh).
Kelsey tries to find a phone to call her friend Jenny for help as to decipher what's up with the note. Did Beth know her life was in danger, or being a writer, was this something she wrote on a whim? Still way too early for that answer. She takes a shower and heads into the dark bedroom where she has the visions of drowning from earlier. She gets scared by Neale who isn't fond of her being around. Frustrated and unable to sleep, she heads out to the beach and over to the cliffside area where she finds a lighthouse. All while sensing that someone is following her. Kelsey opens the door and hears strange laughter. Turns out it's a very skeletal looking man named Isaac. He laughs at her, especially for being afraid of water and being at a beach. He saw her when she arrived, and that there's evil all around this place, and when they want her, they'll get her. He also mentions the ninth day, meaning nine days after someone dies around these parts, their body is usually found. Also, he wasn't the one following her before.
That's enough old creepery for Kelsey as she makes a run for it. She almost falls off the cliff but is saved by Neale who showed up in time, or this would have been a short book, huh folks? She mentions not seeing a sign and the gate to the cliffside of the beach was open, but Neale says it wouldn't be open unless a lifeguard opened it, and the sign couldn't just disappear on its own. What do you think this is, a horror novel? He does say that they found Beth's belongings by a nearby ledge, where there are plenty of rocks and once the tide reaches its height, well connect the dots. Kelsey is frustrated given that Neale seems so cold and cruel, and not just because his sister's presumably dead. Suddenly she gets tackled by a dog belonging to a girl named Donna Westin, who is along with Skip. Neale goes after Skip, saying that he's the obvious suspect, but Skip says he only saw Beth that night to talk, not leave with her, and not try to kill her. Also, despite being a prime suspect, he's still not arrested for it. And he also claims to own the beach anyway. Been a while since I could use it, but yeah, a real "Rich and White" vibe off ol' Skipperoo.
And we get that confirmation as Donna tells Kelsey that Skip's grandmother was the eponymous "Beverly" of Beverly Island. So he comes from money, and his family are close to Eric Connell, and has protected him in the wake of Beth's disappearance. It has a lot to do with Skip's association with Justin being they both went to the same boarding school and are best friends. Almost brotherly in a way. More so than Neale is with Justin or was with Beth as their father sent them all to separate boarding schools. Essentially Neale is described as creepy and mysterious and Justin is nice and sweet. So if the twist is what I think it is, I'll pretend to be surprised. We also learn that Justin and Skip have been lifeguarding Beverly Island for a few years, and there was also a previous drowning incident involving Rebecca, one of the lifeguards. However, no other lifeguard was alerted of her drowning, and even more strangely, there was nobody else in the water for her to have even went to rescue. Since then, Neale's taken over as lifeguard in Rebecca's place.
Kelsey returns to the house and talks with her mother, to which we learn that the search for Beth is being called off. They suspect she fell off the cliff and drowned. Ms. Tanner is about to mention how it's similar to Kelsey's father, but we're still way too early for that (like we're just about 50 pages into this 212 page book and we're still very much in breadcrumbs mode). Kelsey then goes sightseeing with Donna, to which we learn that Beth only came to the island this summer and she was... well... the book describes it as being "a little slow". That things took a while to get to her head. Essentially the kindest way to say autistic, I assume. Well, it's not like when Stine threw out that random ass R-slur, so thanks Richie. Beth was loved by her brothers, even Neale, though she mostly tagged along with Justin, which is how she and Skip seemed to hit it off.
They run into Skip, who is as smug as ever, and invites them over to his place later that night. Including Justin, and even Neale, in an attempt to get their mind off everything for at least a night. He believes that Beth fell and drowned near the cove. It's not a new thing, people have been around after dark and fell to their deaths with no lifeguards around to save them. We learn a bit more about Donna and Skip. Donna comes from a wealthy family as well, but unlike Skip or the Connell kids, she wasn't sent to fancy schools, and has to work as a waitress at a restaurant. Skip isn't the perfect person that he makes himself out to be, having a bad reputation in school, only really being saved from expulsion thanks to his father. Oh yeah, the "rich and white" vibes are radiating off Skip now. The girls continue sightseeing and head to the lighthouse. We learn that there were two drownings already this summer, two girls found by old Isaac. There's a legend to the lighthouse, how it seems that drowned corpses lure people up there to their deaths. As they talk, they then trip over something... or to be more specific, trip over a CORPSE!
They manage to find Skip and tell him about the body. It looked to be of a teenage girl, which Skip suspects could be Beth. He heads up to the lighthouse and tells the girls to stay put. When he comes back, he says he didn't see any body up there, and he's pretty pissed about being led on a wild goose chase. Donna thinks the body may have rolled over the cliff, but Skip thinks she's being a hysterical female, if case you thought this character was actually likeable or anything. He also forbids them from going back up to the lighthouse since it's private property and he'll have them arrested. So, you know, doing a wonderful job in no incriminating himself. After he leaves, the girls decide it's best not to get the sheriff involved lest he throw them in jail anyway. Donna then mentions that it must be hard for Skip given the coed murders and all. Girls at Brookfield, where Skip and Justin went, started disappearing out of nowhere. The bodies never found and no suspect ever caught. So, again, the twist is sounding like what I think it is. As they leave, Kelsey notices the grass is flat, as if there WAS a body on the ground and someone moved it. We get another quick chapter with the lifeguard, who had just killed that girl. A runaway he suspected nobody would miss. Only now things have gotten bad with Donna and Kelsey finding the corpse. He starts to laugh, because he's evil and all.
Kelsey overhears Justin and Neale arguing. Neale suspects Beth is long dead and it's not worth searching anymore. He gets accused of being cold, which he is, but he says that he does care about Beth and his father, but doesn't elaborate on much else. As Eric calls for his sons to talk to them, Kelsey tries to call her friend Jenny, but she's headed on vacation with her parents, so she can't talk about mystery notes or corpses for the next two weeks. She also hangs up quite awkwardly, more on that later. Kelsey takes a shower instead and heads to the bedroom, only to find wet footprints that aren't her own, and some seaweed, meaning someone's been in there already. She heads out to the beach and gets scared by Isaac again. She then tries to tell everyone about the footprints, but when Skip and Justin check, they say they haven't seen anything. Again, Skip gets all angry about it and sexist about it as well because that checks out so far, while Justin thinks that maybe it's Kelsey's paranoia given everything that's going on. There was also another body found, but it appears to be a boating accident this time, so not Beth.
Skip invites Kelsey, Donna and Justin to his mansion and sure enough it's massive. As Kelsey looks inside, she sees a whole bunch of awards for swimming and life saving all awarded to Skip. When she asks if his dad is proud of him, it seems to bother Skip a little. Justin and Kelsey talk some more and it seems they're getting along better. They head out to the beach and Justin tries to coax Kelsey into swimming, but she's too afraid to, given her past with her dad which we still aren't privy to exactly what happened, even as we reach halfway into this book. Suddenly, as Justin tries to get her into the water, a huge pair of waves hit the two and Justin goes missing. Kelsey panics, when Neale shows up and starts to search for his brother, telling Kelsey to use the lifeguard phone in the nearby tower. She finds Justin, but despite nearly drowning, Neale thinks he'll be fine.
As things calm down, Kelsey mentions having seen a shark in the water, to which Neale seems slightly concerned, but says it's best just to tell the proper people about, and that like everything else she may have been hallucinating it. Kelsey's sick of Neale's attitude, his bossiness, the fact he didn't seem to be out lifeguarding when he was supposed to. She also thinks that Justin seems afraid of Neale, which given his near-drowning, I could see why. Kelsey has the dream involving her dad again, then wakes up and looks outside to the gate by the beach. She sees Isaac trying to get in and warns Skip and the others about him before he disappears. Despite Isaac supposedly being harmless, Neale says that nobody is really harmless, and that's enough excitement for one night.
As Kelsey looks for her purse in Skip's mansion, he talks with her again, showing the gym with a full-length mirror and, oh yeah, a whole slew of stuffed and mounted animals. Ducks, foxes, deer, you name it. It's a hobby of his. He especially loves tracking them in silence, the creature not knowing you're nearby before the kill. Totally not incriminating himself as a crazed serial killer or anything, perish the thought. Skip also reveals what we kind of figured, in that he hates his family, is considered somewhat of an embarrassment due to his actions, and he likens living a life of privilege to being a life of imprisonment. I'd say he's based, but he's also drunk and seems to be implying wanting Kelsey no matter what. Thankfully Justin calls to take Kelsey home before that happens. Kelsey returns to her room and indeed finds the seaweed that Justin and Skip claimed weren't in the room. Beth's note is gone too. She then realizes that when she was trying to talk with Jenny earlier, someone was listening on the other phone in the house and hung up on her. Meaning that whoever our stalker is, they know Jenny knows something.
Kelsey talks with Neale the next day and gets SOME info out of him. Namely that while he's certain Beth drowned, he doesn't think it was an accident. That she was murdered. He also tells Kelsey to stay out of this whole thing, or she'll just end up getting hurt. But never mind that, Donna's set Kelsey up with a date with Jason and herself with Skip. Kelsey brings up all she's learned so far, even bringing up how Justin almost drowned. How only Justin got caught in the undertow, and how something bumped her that looked like a shark, but didn't cut her on account of shark skin being super rough. Kelsey suspects Isaac of being the culprit given, well, he is pretty creepy, there was a body by the lighthouse and he was there the night Justin almost drowned. Also, Kelsey looks to the lighthouse and sees someone up there staring at them. So, now Donna and Kelsey are convinced that whoever it is, they know the score and their lives are in danger.
Kelsey wakes up and runs into Justin as the two head out to a party with Skip, Neale and Donna. She tells Donna about everything she saw at Isaac's boat, which gets interrupted by the boys who overheard. They immediately poke holes in Kelsey's story. The blood on the knife could be fish blood and the scarf could be anyone's. Beth may not have even worn that scarf on the night she vanished. Also, since Isaac never confessed to any crime, she doesn't have any proof either. Which, hell, fair point. Neale in particular is angered over this, more so for Kelsey's involvement than anything. Justin tries to apologize for Skip and Neale, but the girls aren't happy with everything, notably in how weird it is that they're almost protecting Isaac. I... I mean they're NOT WRONG. We then get another quick lifeguard chapter saying it would be a shame if he has to kill Isaac too. He is bothered that soon this will all come to an end, just like what he did to Rebecca. But given she's getting too close, Kelsey's gotta die tonight. Also *checks invisible watch* would you look at the time. It must be time for a convenient storm to be on the way.
Donna and Skip argue, leading to Donna making her leave. Skip tries to apologize for the mockery, but Kelsey doesn't buy it and walks off. However, she ends up being caught by Isaac. He knows she was in his houseboat and that she best stop thinking he did it, to stop pursuing lest she ends up washed ashore. Of course, his way of showing his innocence is grabbing her by the neck. She bites him and runs off. However, she hears the sound of some girl calling for help echoing off the cove. She manages to get the lifeguards, but when Justin tries to find the girl, she's nowhere to be seen. This time, they're less inclined to believe Kelsey imagined the voice, but Neale says that this was exactly what happened with Rebecca. She heard someone calling for help and swam to their rescue, only to end up drowning and nobody was there.
Kelsey has had enough of all of this and finally breaks down, with Neale being the one to talk with her, where she reveals that her dad died two years ago. They were on a boat which turned over. He managed to save her in time before drowning, and all of her trauma, the nightmares are of those final moments, him telling her not to struggle. She's harbored the guilt of his death ever since, to which Neale tells her not to. She then mentions the encounter with Isaac, that Isaac seems to know who the killer is, and the threat about being washed ashore. Of course, Skip doesn't think it's possible, which pisses Donna and Kelsey off. So right now Kelsey doesn't trust Skip, barely trusts Neale, but is at least willing to listen and believe Justin. So, again, if the twist is what I think it is... Donna makes her leave, but not before borrowing Kelsey's windbreaker. She talks with Justin and they embrace before he leaves. Time for another lifeguard chapter saying that he was busy killing someone else, but Kelsey ruined it and forced him to rush. But he'll get her in the morning. Her in her fancy purple windbreak-Oh shit.
Yup, the lifeguard catches Donna and kills her by throwing her off the ledge to the rocks below. He didn't want to kill her, he wanted to kill Kelsey. So now he's doubly pissed off. The next day, there's no power in the cottage on account of the convenient storm. She finds some notes, one from Neale to Beth. It mentions that he was in a psychiatric ward and mentions that he knows that he'll never be accepted by their father like Justin is. He was also the one who gave Beth the scarf and seemed to be trying hard to have any form of a relationship with his sister. She sees Skip and Justin are up and gives them coffee as they ask "Where's Donna?" Skip decides to check on her alongside Kelsey. They go in Skip's jeep, only for it to crash and Kelsey to be thrown out of the vehicle. She tries to regain her bearings, but can't find Skip anywhere. But she does find Isaac, or to be more precise... Isaac's corpse! She then breathes a sigh of relief that he's dead and the horror is finally over. Still 30 pages, so of course it's not. She then sees a key in his hand. A key that one of the lifeguards would use. So maybe she was a bit too early to celebrate. Uh, yeah you think?
She then sees Skip in the distance and begins to suspect that it must be him. All the claims of not seeing anything. The fact that he claimed to own the beach given his lineage, the whole admitting to enjoying stalking his prey. Why, it must be him! He must have killed Beth. She rushes to the lighthouse and hears Donna's voice downstairs. She heads down into the darkness, but instead of Donna, she finds the lifeguard instead. He says that it's her fault that he had to kill Donna. Why does he kill? Well, it's a power thing. He lures girls to him, makes them feel special, then kills them. Beth wasn't one he wanted to kill, but she found out about what he was doing. But now it's Kelsey's turn. Under the lighthouse, the caves often easily flood, so it could be slow and painless, but screw it, quick and nasty's the way to go. Kelsey makes a run for it, and ends up tripping over Beth, or should I-Ah you know the drill by now. Yep, that's Beth's on the ground.
She rushes into the water to swim and now she thinks that it MUST be Neale. The psychiatric ward, the Brookfield murders, the jealousy over Justin. My god she's a worse detective than R.L. Stine! She gets grabbed by Justin, who she thinks is here to save her, but SURPRISE! He's trying to drown her! Kelsey passes out, but is soon awakened by Neale's voice. She's now in a clinic, recovering from what went down. Neale says that despite trying to get Justin to stop, he just kept swimming to his death. Beth is alive surprisingly, as is Donna, who was thrown off, but managed to hang on and survive. So Justin's good at killing, not so good at checking for the corpse.
Neale knows that Kelsey thought he may have been the killer lifeguard, but he admits that he cared too much for Beth. She was the only one in the family who even cared about his life. His dad never did, more focused on Justin, the perfect son. It's why he ended up in a psychiatric ward as he tried to take his own life. He also thought it was Skip at one point, not perfect Justin, even though it's the perfect cover. Neale found Skip and the two managed to find Kelsey in time. He tucks her in and the two are happy it's over, and, it seems like both have found their second chance. Awww.
Kelsey is an okay protagonist. You can sympathize with her issues, her being sort of stuck in the middle of the mystery of Beth's disappearance, her constantly feeling like everyone is against her and no matter what she does, it seems like a losing effort. She's not a good detective as she honestly suspects every single shady character. Not even to the point that it makes Justin's cover so rock-solid. Creepy Isaac? It MUST be him. Ol' psycho Neale? If not Isaac then it MUST be him. Skip? Sure, why the hell not, it MUST be him. Justin? Nah, he's the overly nice guy I'm into. Surely it shan't be him! It just makes following her in the mystery a bit annoying until you finally get the big reveal at the end.
As for everyone else, they all work fine enough as red herrings and our ultimate villain. I mean, for as bad a judge of character Kelsey is, it's not hard to see why she'd think Justin's the only good guy here, given what she knows of him. He's a fine enough choice for a villain given that, yeah, everyone thinks he's this perfect guy. Unassuming, easy to fall for, only to end up falling off a cliff when he's done with you. Definitely a cunning serial killer who is mainly done in by his own hubris being so bad. He tried some decent alibis like the whole tide thing and, I guess, trying to drag Kelsey into the water, it just mostly falls apart when he just up and not double checks if Donna died.
Skip is annoying, but that's the point. A rich guy who acts like a bit of a joker. One we don't really get the full answer as to what he's about. His resentment of being from an affluent family could have been more expanded upon, and him being a hunter just works to redden his herring-ness. Neale is probably the best character by proxy, given his past and everything. The book makes him come off as cold and untrustworthy when in the end he's the best of the bunch. Your standard "He's cold, but there's probably a warmness to him brewing from underneath. Donna is also fine as the female best friend and Isaac works as the other creepy guy who you'd believe could be the killer, even though the book is called THE LIFEGUARD. Unless he was revealed to be like a super old lifeguard that wouldn't work here.
So, overall, this book, as a book, is just fine if, say, it was your first mystery horror story and you haven't gotten the hang of the kinds of tropes these books are known for. If you're like me however, oh this one was a slog to sit through. A decent set of ideas, but a sluggish execution and a lack of real fun to it. More punch to the horror and more fun to the mystery, even if it was still obvious, would have helped this one a lot. A real shame to have my first experience with Richie Tankersley Cusick kind of be a bummer huh? I still liked a lot of what she brought to the table and will be back to cover other works. Let's just hope this one was the exception, not the norm. The Lifeguard gets a C.
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