A pleasant Pacific jaunt. [Treasure of the Blue Whale by Steven Mayfield]

A rare treasure, a treacherous conspiracy, and a first love set off this witty, wry romp through a depression-era, sleepy-seaside village’s rags-to-riches-to-rags story. During the summer of 1934 the town of Tesoro gets a taste of fortune when ten-year-old Conner O’Halloran discovers a chunk of ambergris encased in a thousand-pound blob of sewage-sludge that washed ashore. Instead of keeping the treasure of the blue whale to himself, he chooses to split the spoils equally with the town. The people react in a manic race to acquire useless trinkets—comically transforming the town into a bastion of consumerism. As they are otherwise-occupied, the miserly, cantankerous, and allegedly felonious local millionaire-villain devises a plan to cheat the town out of their new-found wealth. Fearing that the people will lose their homes and livelihood, Connor, together with a small group of sharp-minded, prominent townsfolk, attempt to out-swindle the master swindler. In this quirky coming-of-age fable of ruin and abundance, Connor learns what is real and what is simply sludge. As the sludge clears the town realizes they had the true treasure all along.

Steven Mayfield's Treasure of the Blue Whale didn't grab me at first. In full disclosure I'd started the book, albeit in an inattentive state of mind, gotten about a tenth of the book deep, and not really retained much, not really been hooked. The first go-round the language read murkily, but once I got into the setting and the pacing of the writing my reading experience really took off.

As I described the fiction centered around ambergris I was reading to friends the word "hijinks" most easily came to mind. Seaside hijinkery. Inter class struggles. And layered mysteries and insights on how small the world actually is. The writing style, once jived with, was really lovely. I was invested in characters across the board. The story telegraphed and wasn't too surprising, but was pleasant throughout. With how much I enjoyed the writing I find myself wanting to give it the higher score, but reflecting how much I enjoyed the story I can't. 4 stars from me.

Steven Mayfield's Treasure of the Blue Whale was published April 2020.