Black Tide: A Lewis Cole Mystery [Hardcover]

Brendan Dubois (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995

In the sequel to Dead Sand, Lewis Cole plans a relaxing end to his summer in New Hampshire, but corpses washing up on the beach and millions of dollars worth of stolen artwork conspire to disrupt his plans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sitting on the deck of his New Hampshire beach house with a couple of Molsons, retired agency man and occasional journalist Lewis Cole is bemoaning the recently oil-soaked coastline when he sees a corpse drift in. Lewis, who is recovering from an operation to remove a benign but puzzling tumor, a result of his participation in a Department of Defense experiment in Nevada (recounted in Dead Sand), is trying to trace the ownership of the tanker that spilled the oil. He also agrees to help a lesbian cop pal who has a new guy on the force interested in her and to advise, for a fee, his neighbor Felix, a onetime criminal who knows the whereabouts of three famous purloined paintings. Teasing us with Cole's agency history and the incident that ended his employment, DuBois spins a convoluted narrative that embraces the theft of the paintings from an art gallery, the financial woes of the gallery owner and a security guard, the amorous cop, the owner of the leaky ship and the floater. Successfully untangling this surfeit of plot lines, DuBois paints a vivid picture of Cole's life in controlled, seductive prose.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Lewis Cole resides in a picturesque New England seaside town, doesn't have to punch a time clock, and has money to live on courtesy of a tidy settlement from his old employer, the Department of Defense. But he does have a tendency to get involved in murder and mayhem--in fact, he's recovering from a nearly fatal gunshot wound suffered when he tried tackling a murderer single-handedly. All he wants to do is relax for the summer. It's not to be, though. An oil spill has dumped black gunk on nearby beaches; Lewis discovers a headless, handless body washed up on the shore outside his cottage; there's an annoying new cop in town who seems to be attracted to Lewis' best gal; and Lewis' old friend Felix Tinios gets involved in a case of stolen paintings. DuBois' dry wit and laid-back writing style play nicely off the taut, action-packed plot. This one will appeal to a wide range of mystery fans. Emily Melton

Product Details

• Hardcover: 398 pages
• Publisher: Otto Penzler Books; First edition (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883402581
• ISBN-13: 978-1883402587
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,988,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brendan DuBois of New Hampshire is the award-winning author of twelve novels and more than 100 short stories. His latest novel, "Deadly Cove," will be published in July 2011 by St. Martin's Press. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous other magazines and anthologies including "The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century," published in 2000 by Houghton-Mifflin and edited by Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler.

His short stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and have also earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America.

Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An impressive 2nd effort from a fairly new author., May 22, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Tide: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Paperback)

Brendan DuBois has obviously learned much from his previous book, Dead Sand. Black Tide picks up a few months after the conclusion of Dead Sand, and pulls the reader almost instantly into the plotline. Unlike its predecessor, Black Tide does not dwell on seacoast details for pages on end. DuBois learns to get past the filler and primarily utilize events and character to fill the page, rather than physical details of the landscape. DuBois' sense of character is refreshing for the mystery novel genre; he has created a both a protagonist and secondary characters that contain just about the right amount of toughness and humanity, but don't cross that borderline into the exaggerated realm of cliche. One sin Dubois did commit in both novels, however, is that of creating a murderer that the reader couldn't care less about. In both cases, a minor character is chosen as the guilty party -- the typical "seems like a nice guy, but I think there's some sinister under the surface" character that the avid mystery reader can pick out after reading just a few pages that involve the character. This is the fly in the soup that exposes what would otherwise be a fairly unpredictable plot. On the other hand, the story is very readable. This holds true in its pace, action, and dialogue. There are some very exciting moments that take place in this seemingly quiet little seaside town, and DuBois kept me hooked through each new development. In the end, what the reader gets is a good commercial mystery novel. I would recommend this novel to a friend, so long as the friend had not read every Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Three Investigators novel ever written. It is a great building block for an author that is fairly new in terms of novels (DuBois has published many short stories), and I look forward to his future development and books. I will be waiting in anticipation of his next Lewis Cole mystery...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Plenty of brains and brawn, February 3, 2004

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Tide: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Hardcover)

DuBois' second Lewis Cole mystery opens with Cole's discovery of a headless, handless corpse in the cold surf off his New Hampshire beach home. Cole, a former Department of Defense spook, pensioned off with his secrets and a generous income funnelled through his job as a magazine columnist, puts the corpse out of his mind, intent on finding the deeply hidden owner of an oil tanker that ruptured, fouling his beloved coast with its cargo.

A wizard with a computer and a telephone line, Cole tracks the protected owner but has no way to get at him. Plotting his next step, he's distracted by a friend, Felix, a former Mob affiliate, who wants his help in resolving the fate of some stolen Winslow Homer paintings, long hidden in a dead mobster's safe house.

When a powerful thug is brutally murdered in their presence, Cole's friend Felix goes into hiding, and Cole embarks on the dangerous trail of the art thieves, a trek that involves skills Cole had hoped were behind him.

With plenty of rugged action and quick spook-type thinking, DuBois has constructed an absorbing tale of greed and utter ruthlessness, occasionally slowed by his hero's tortured, sometimes bitter ruminations over repetitive ground. The New Hampshire and Maine seacoast areas are vividly realized and the tangled plot liines are effectively sorted.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He's getting even better!, May 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Tide: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Lewis Cole Mysteries) (Paperback)

This is a great mystery...even better than his first, Dead Sand...but the plot is just a little far-fetched, and DuBois/Cole are still hung up on SWEAT. Get over it!