The Girl with the Red Nails

In The Girl with the Red Nails, G. Spencer Myers introduces Dr. Derk Bryan, who is drawn back from his sabbatical when a woman’s body—encased in an indestructible block of plastic—washes up on the Florida Panhandle. The body, discovered by Estee Sparks, a fierce environmental activist whose own life has been shattered by the effects of plastic pollution, launches Dr. Bryan into an investigation that reaches from the Gulf Coast to the upper echelons of the plastics industry. Estee, seeking retribution for her son’s death and the collapse of her family’s business, teams up with a ragtag group: law students, fellow activists, and an opioid-recovering investigative reporter. Together, they link the murder to Pendleton Danswirth III, a powerful plastics magnate whose empire is built on environmental negligence. As the team’s guerilla actions escalate—culminating in high-profile stunts and mounting public pressure—Bryan races to expose the truth, confront a corporate giant, and prevent further tragedy.

Myers crafts a propulsive eco-thriller populated with complex, deeply flawed characters. Estee Sparks, covered in tattoos of extinct animals, emerges as both a symbol and a casualty of environmental neglect, her grief and rage driving the plot and giving emotional heft to the novel’s activism. Dr. Derk Bryan is a reluctant hero, torn between retirement and responsibility; his personal losses mirror the larger losses being suffered by the natural world. The supporting cast—law students, journalists, and corporate villains—is well drawn, often with biting humor. Themes of justice, grief, complicity, and redemption are interwoven with a scathing critique of corporate greenwashing and political inertia. The Gulf Coast, battered by storms and pollution, provides a vivid, resonant setting. I enjoyed how Myers uses “climate facts” before each chapter and how personal and planetary stakes combine to create a story that is both urgent and thought-provoking. The Girl with the Red Nails is a thriller about murder, but it is more than that—it is protest literature at its best, a tautly plotted, cleverly executed tale that will leave no reader indifferent.