DEEP END

Ex-SEAL Phil Garvey's not the kind of guy who'd get involved with drugs, so when his dive buddy—Florida panhandle investigator Morgan Hunt—sees that he's being hassled by Coast Guard searches, he doesn't waste any time getting his sometime employer, lawyer Nat Semmes, to identify disgruntled dive pupil Frank Loftin as the perjured informant. But no sooner has Loftin apologized and offered a nice cash settlement than Garvey—already bedeviled by a sick kid, big medical bills, and an impatient bank newly taken over by financial buccaneer Vernon Culp—starts telling crazy stories about diving for a Spanish galleon, then disappears. It's up to Morgan to track him down, find out where his dreams of sudden wealth are really coming from, and make the best deal he can for Garvey's wife—or his widow. Another agreeable, lazily plotted John D. MacDonald knockoff from Norman (Sweetwater Ranch, Blue Chipper), who's welcome to keep spinning yarns like this for another hundred years.