Paddling out into Elkhorn Slough on a bright, brisk morning in May, Nina Simon pointed out brown pelicans gliding inches above the salty Pacific backwaters, harbor seals basking on the mudflats, Southern sea otters swimming among blades of kelp and the distant din of traffic trucking along Highway 1, which separates the Monterey Bay marine preserve from the ocean. Simon absorbed all of these scenes for months atop her orange stand-up paddleboard — a pandemic purchase — while researching the backdrop for her debut novel, “Mother-Daughter Murder Night.” But there’s one key element at the core of the author’s best-selling book that wasn’t sourced directly from Elkhorn Slough’s diverse flora and fauna: a dead body.
That twist was inspired by Simon’s mother, Sarina, and her lifelong love of murder mysteries. Together, the duo dreamed up “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” after Sarina was diagnosed with cancer in August 2020 and temporarily moved into her daughter’s real life home in Santa Cruz for months of healing. Simon says she started jotting down ideas in the morning — her mother would read them over later — as a creative, literary escape from their taxing reality.
That daily practice culminated in a 368-page murder mystery set in the slough, which is as vivid a character as any protagonist — a place where beauty and serenity collide with menace and danger. “Elkhorn Slough was a good place to play with imagery and the metaphors about life and death.