In Snakes of St. Augustine, Ginger Pinholster’s second novel, qualities of acceptance, belief, and trust spur the novel’s beautifully drawn characters to survive—no, thrive—in seemingly impossible circumstance. This entertaining novel introduces readers to a cast of marginalized characters who navigate their lives with limited resources and without the security that comes from having had stable parents. The novel’s three hundred and ten pages explore the social costs of untreated mental illness and how it affects us all, directly or indirectly. 

Set in Saint Augustine, Florida, the novel begins with the theft of Trina Leigh Dean’s elderly, rare, and valuable trio of snakes. Unicorn, Banana Splits, and Bandit are stolen from Trina’s serpentarium, an education and rehabilitation center that she has worked diligently to establish; once a gritty, swampy reptile show belonging to her parents, it is now a jewel of a business. Working from a hunch that the snakes were stolen by her estranged adopted sister, Trina calls on Fletch Jeffries, a burned-out detective grieving his recently deceased wife and looking forward to his imminent retirement. 

As Fletch works through his final days as a detective, he meets with a self-employed fitness instructor, Serena Jacobs, who is desperate to find her missing brother, Gethin. Serena knows that Gethin was a “special needs child,” as identified by the school system. Trusting Fletch neither to do his job, nor keep his promise, nor understand her brother’s unusual personality quirks, Serena—sometimes aided by Gethin’s girlfriend, Rocky, and by a homeless college student named Jazz—follows every lead in search of her missing brother. Little does anyone know that Fletch’s quest to find the missing snakes and Serena’s quest to find her missing brother both lead to the same place, the gritty underbelly of St. Augustine.

The book is organized in chapters focused on each of the major characters, a strategy that permits Pinholster to plumb the depths of each character while moving her story forward. From Serena, we learn that her mother had abandoned her at eighteen, leaving her to care for Gethin, her much younger brother. Shouldering this responsibility, Serena became a super-caregiver. With tiny touches, Pinholster shows how Serena’s caregiving seeps into every interaction. While Serena is driving with Rocky, she collides with a cyclist who doesn’t have health insurance, and Serena encourages the injured man, a programmer, to get a ride with them rather than calling an expensive ambulance. Rocky is skeptical, but Serena is committed to attending to his injuries:

Rocky turned, mouth opening, and without taking her eyes off Serena, she clicked her phone off. ‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘He might rob us.’

Through the windshield, his head disappeared. He had stretched himself across the back seat. Serena turned her back to him and whispered. ‘He’s a computer geek, honey, He’s injured and outnumbered.’

The chapters devoted to Fletch, the detective, provide additional examples of Pinholster’s light yet penetrating treatment of her characters. Fletch is a cop who is also a good guy: he cares about people and his job. He does police work the old-fashioned way, by talking to people and keeping notes. Most importantly, he knows the city and its inhabitants. When his meeting with Trina runs overtime, causing him to lose a coveted desk duty assignment, he finds himself once more on the street: 

To his dismay, Fletch had been taken off desk duty the day after his breakfast with Trina Leigh Dean had caused him to be late for work. Two months and twenty eight days shy of his retirement, he was once again being forced to interact with tire thieves, public drunks, and lead-footed drivers. […] Worse, Fletch had been assigned to train a newbie.

Although fate has foiled Fletch’s desire to end his detective days in peace, he plays a vital role in the shocking loss at the story’s end.

While some of the novel’s characters struggle with routine challenges, such as grief after the death of a loved one, others navigate serious mental health concerns such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and disturbances stemming from childhood trauma. Pinholster shows how life’s unexpected zigs and zags can force people into poverty and homelessness. She also explores how belief, trust, and compassion for all living beings—even a trio of snakes—can make the difference between sinking into madness and surviving, if not thriving. Snakes of Saint Augustine is a compelling story that encourages readers to reconsider what it means to be family and to belong to a community.

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Ginger Pinholster likes to say that turtles find her. A volunteer member of Florida’s Volusia Turtle Patrol, she earned an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and BA from Eckerd College. Her first novel, City in a Forest (Black Rose Writing, 2019), won a Gold Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association. A resident of Ponce Inlet, Florida, she serves as vice president for communications at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

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Rosalia Scalia is the author of two story collections, Stumbling Toward Grace (2021) and the forthcoming Under the Radar, both from Unsolicited Press. She holds an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and is a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist’s Award recipient. She lives with her family in Baltimore City. Find her online at:  http://www.rosaliascalia.com.