DOUG ALLYN “The Iron Maiden.” Michelle “Mitch” Mitchell, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November-December 2923.

   The online Crime Fiction Index lists only two stories featuring deep sea diver Mitch Mitchell, but there are others yet to be found and so designated. This I know because this is one and it is not (yet) so noted. There is an interesting story about this as well, told as a short introduction to “The Iron Maiden.”

   When the series began, with “Icewater Mansions,” a novelette in the January 1992 issue of EQMM, the hero was Brian Mitchell, also called Mitch. When the story expanded into a novel a few years later, the character had turned gender on us, and had become Michelle
“Mitch” Mitchell.

   Also of note, perhaps, is that in same blurb that exists before this story begins, it tells us that Brian Mitchell was a Lake Michigan diver. While reading this one, I really really though was taking place in and on Lake Huron. (I could easily be wrong, but I don’t think I am.)

   No matter, really. What this story is about is the search for a small ship that went lost a number of years ago, one that, now located, is the main attraction for two competing crews, both presuming the boat may still be the hiding place for a small treasure of “pirates” gold. Mitch is in one team, and as it turns out, an old friend from her past is on the other.

   It’s minor tale, overall, with lots and lots of action, but what also caught my attention was the eerie feeling I felt as Mitch is under water, her air supply starting to run out, and she finds the boat … and a whole lot more. Underwater diving is a sport (and a job) that’s definitely not for me.