DARK DIVE

Undersea investigators probe the disappearance of an amateur diver with a turbulent lifestyle.

A strange prologue, set in what’s now Central Florida in the year 11,867 BCE, finds a woman named Niqua running for her life from an unnamed pursuer. In the present, diving sleuth Sloan McPherson of Florida’s Underwater Investigative Unit is summoned by her boss, George Solar, after the coroner’s van, with two corpses aboard, gets stuck in an alligator breeding ground. Recovering submerged bodies is all in a day’s work for Sloan, but rarely under such dangerous conditions. In the middle of the operation, Sloan’s light goes out and she’s attacked not by an apex predator but by a drifting pump. After a brief hospital stay, Sloan’s attempts to shake her skittishness are supported by her partner, Run, and her daughter, Jackie. Fortunately, her next case unfolds primarily on land. With sidekicks Hughes and Gwen, she follows up on a missing person report on Fred Stafford, who dives regularly with the Dive Rats but has an otherwise unstable lifestyle. The short, titled chapters and Sloan’s first-person narration maintain a brisk pace as Sloan visits Stafford’s home, where there’s evidence of a break-in; a casino he frequents; and a forest that may have been the site of his last dive. Mayne’s character portraits are crisp, adding tropes from traditional private eye novels and enlarging the world he’s created over four previous UIU mysteries. Of course, Sloan inevitably needs to dive again in order to close the case, conquer her fear, and explain Niqua’s flight.

A solid mystery with an underwater backdrop.