Needing a quick transfusion of ready cash, Michelle ""Mitch"" Mitchell, a single mother, takes a nightmarish diving job, to descend into a murky river to find a drowned car and its missing driver, a surly delinquent who came to town to search for his millionaire birth father.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A remarkably gripping climax almost redeems the second appearance of Michelle "Mitch" Mitchell (Icewater Mansions), the scuba-diving northern Michigan tavern owner. Plucky Mitch, whose young son is off at boarding school, is lamenting the dry rot that's eating her bar when a cocky young man saunters in and asks for a drink. She persuades him that it's too early in the morning for whiskey, and that's the last anyone sees of Jimmy Calderon, whose rental car is soon found in the river. Jimmy was on the trail of his birth-father (whom he'd never known). The father belonged to a wealthy local family and is thought to have vanished and died after disgracing himself in Vietnam. Ray Calderon, Jimmy's older half-brother?same mom, different dad, he says?turns up next, eager to find the wayward Jimmy and, before long, eager to spend more time with Mitch. But Ray's got someone trailing him and a very convoluted story of his own about how he agreed to take a phony dishonorable discharge from the Navy for Jimmy's sake. Allyn's prose is fair, and the reader is seduced for a while by all the happy, decent folk who keep showing up. But all the sunny characters and cute local color eventually cry out for some kind of conflict. When it comes, about ten pages from the close, it's just too little, too late. (Apr.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
To a diver, black water is a potential nightmare. Michelle "Mitch" Mitchell opts to contend with that nightmare when a car slides off the road into a deepwater hole. Mitch's background as a Gulf Coast oil-rig diver puts her at the top of a short list of those willing to search for a body. There isn't one, but the man who rented the car, Jimmy Calderon, is missing. He may have been the illegitimate son of the late Owen McClain, patriarch of the area's wealthiest family. He made it to the widow McClain's home, discussed his parentage with her, and left angry and drunk. But if he did have an accident, where is the body? Calderon's brother, Ray, helps Mitch undertake the search. They soon begin to feel that Jimmy's disappearance is no accident. This is the second Mitchell novel, and it is not as entertaining as the first. Still, as a small-town exercise in murder, it's better than most. Allyn is a high-quality writer sure to overcome this small misstep. Wes Lukowsky
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4.0 out of 5 stars
More people should read Allyn,
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This review is from: Black Water: A Mitch Mitchell Mystery (Hardcover)
I discovered Allyn last year from his excellent book "The Burning of Rachael Hayes," and promptly ordered his backlist. Allyn is a wonderful writer who knows how to create interesting characters you'd like to know, a sense of place you'd like to visit, dialogue you can hear and a plot in which you become involved. I particularly appreciate that he doesn't fall into the stereotypical small-town police chief, and included a well-done twist at the end. I will admit that this book was not quite as good as "Icewater Mansions," the first in the Mitch Mitchell series, but that's being really picky.
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