Fri 14 May 2021
A Mystery Review by LJ Roberts: ANDREW MAYNE – Black Coral.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[14] Comments
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
ANDREW MAYNE – Black Coral. Underwater Investigation Unit #2. Thomas Mercer, paperback, February 2021.
First Sentence: Everyone is looking at me funny.
The Underwater Investigation Unit is called out to a submerged van at Pond 65. The passenger has been recovered; but Detective Sloan McPherson, the team’s top diver, needs to recover the driver. Rather than one, she finds three bodies in the van, and evidence of a fifth person having been involved. The investigation puts McPherson and the UIU on the trail of the serial killer, while also trying to catch a thief stealing millions of electronic equipment off mega-yachts.
Mayne has a great voice layered with wry humor— “‘If you have any questions, please contact us through our website,'” George concludes. … ‘We have a website?’ I ask in a whisper.” He is a true storyteller who creates wonderful characters that play into one . One wants to share passages of his writing with others. Not every male author writes women well. Mayne is one who truly does, and it is a pleasure to read.
Slone is fully dimensional. There is a nice injection of the character’s personal life which adds to balance to the story, injecting light into the dark. There is realism in admitting no one is a perfect parent. one provides compelling She is introspective both about the case— “I see two different men in front of me. One is the monster. The other is the victim. The victim didn’t make the monster, but it sure did nurture him.”, and her life as a cop— “…where do I go from here? Catching the New River Bandits was a good thing, but in no way deeply fulfilling.”
Having Sloan be an archeologist, as well as a diver and cop, brings dimension to the character and opens interesting doors. The plot is very well done and filled with surprises, yet none of them feel contrived. The things one learns are unusual.
Periodic references to events from the first book, don’t distract from the current story, nor does the crossover reference to Mayne’s Theo Cray series. This book stands nicely on its own merit.
Of the two cases, one is fairly straight forward, but the second takes one down a surprising, twisty path with some definite “Oh, my” moments. Although the main plot is about a serial killer, the book is far more suspenseful than gory.
Black Coral is an excellent read full of humor, suspense, wicked good twists, and a very unexpected ending.
Rating: Excellent.
The Underwater Investigation Unit series —
1. The Girl Beneath the Sea (2020)
2. Black Coral (2021)
3. Sea Storm (2022)
May 14th, 2021 at 9:24 pm
One I’ll have to look up. My cousin used to recover bodies with the Dallas Fire Department for the police, though of course they didn’t investigate.
May 14th, 2021 at 10:07 pm
Andrew Mayne is new author to me. Whenever that happens, of course I have to look him up:
“Andrew Mayne, star of A&E’s Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne, is a magician and novelist ranked the fifth best-selling independent author of the year by Amazon UK. He started his first world tour as an illusionist when he was a teenager and went on to work behind the scenes for Penn & Teller, David Blaine and David Copperfield.”
He’s also been busy as a writer.
From Fantastic Fiction:
Chronological Man Adventure
1. The Monster in the Mist (2011)
2. The Martian Emperor (2011)
Jessica Blackwood
1. Angel Killer (2014)
2. Name of the Devil (2015)
3. Black Fall (2017)
Fire in the Sky (2015)
Space Ops
1. Station Breaker (2016)
2. Orbital (2017)
Naturalist
1. The Naturalist (2017)
2. Looking Glass (2018)
3. Murder Theory (2019)
4. Dark Pattern (2019)
Underwater Investigation Unit
1. The Girl Beneath the Sea (2020)
2. Black Coral (2021)
3. Sea Storm (2022)
Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood
Mastermind (2021)
Novels
Public Enemy Zero (2011)
Knight School (2013)
Hollywood Pharaohs (2013)
Novellas
The Grendel’s Shadow (2011)
Game Knight (2015)
May 15th, 2021 at 3:21 am
Unfortunately, once again the present tense would really be an insurmountable obstacle for me.
May 15th, 2021 at 3:41 am
You and me both, Doug. I tried to read a different book told in first person last week. Even though it was highly recommended to me, I couldn’t get past chapter two, and I tried.
May 15th, 2021 at 5:40 am
Well, you made it sound good enough for me to buy it.
May 15th, 2021 at 1:29 pm
Which is exactly what a good review should so. Alert people about a book they may not have known about before, then help say yea or nay as whether to try it for themselves. (Or not, as the case may be.)
May 15th, 2021 at 2:05 pm
What’s interesting to me is, with all those books, my library has NONE of them. Zip. Too bad, because it sounds interesting.
May 15th, 2021 at 2:21 pm
I see some are free from Amazon through their Kindle Unlimited program.
May 15th, 2021 at 2:34 pm
Oh good, Terry, I’m glad you’re going to try it. I became a fan with the first Jessica Blackwood book.
It’s interesting to me that some people can’t read books written with certain POVs. I honestly never even notice. I just look for a good story, and Mayne writes good stories with slightly quirky characters. Okay, so the 3rd Cray book did get a bit dark for me, but otherwise…
Jeff, he started out self-publishing his books but now Thomas & Mercer has picked him up. Hopefully, libraries will catch on to him soon.
Fun fact: Mayne’s father and brother were involved in law enforcement.
Enjoy.
LJ
May 17th, 2021 at 5:23 am
It is a great book. I bought the first one in the series after reading this, and it was fine, although not as good. But still good enough that I preordered book three. Do you ever get a commission?
May 17th, 2021 at 5:25 am
OBTW, it is Pond 65, not 59.
May 17th, 2021 at 5:28 am
And you missed the two quotes that really grabbed me:
“.I knew he was not a SEAL, because if he was he would have told me in the first two minutes.â€
“Yachts mean money. Money means horny men.â€
May 17th, 2021 at 5:17 pm
LOL, Terry. My mother keeps saying that someone should be paying me for my reviews. I wish, but I do get free books. .I was a paid reviewer for “The Strand Magazine” for a time but they only wanted favorable reviews of books published by their advertisers, and that just didn’t work for me, especially when they changed the copy of one of my reviews without asking me.
I am SO embarrassed. You’ve no idea how many times I proofed that review, but not even Andrew caught the mistake as I know he read it online. I shall definitely fix that. Thank you for telling me.
He is a very quotable author. I take notes as I read and I have pages of notations, but I just couldn’t use them all. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks,
I am slightly chagrined,
LJ
May 17th, 2021 at 7:51 pm
I’ll fix it here on this blog, too.