Hyperion, June 2007
Quirky Characters, Deftly Handled
Could this murder mystery novel by fishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw be any more contemporary? Set in a small coastal Maine town against a backdrop of commercial fishing boats, cod stern trawlers to be exact, gambling debts and an offshore windfarm project, Greenlaw crafts her first novel with a nice mix of skill and wit.
When Jane Bunker arrives in Green Haven after leaving her job as chief detective in Florida’s Dade County, her first assignment as a marine investigator isn’t supposed to involve a murder. But Bunker can’t keep herself from figuring out, on the side, why Nick Dow’s body turns up floating by the pier, and why so many try to pretend it was an accident when she knows better.
Filled with quirky local characters that cut across class and lifestyles, this page-turner includes a local bookie, a conniving fish processing plant owner, a town floozy turned nouveau-riche wife, an old-money offshore wind farm developer, tacky tourist shop owners, the well-informed coffee shop waitress, and a handsome commercial boat captain.
Our heroine has returned to a place that her mother fled years ago, children in tow, but no one knows that, allowing Bunker the freedom that anonymity brings. For a time, at any rate. Her moves begin to be watched by the locals she suspects. A caustic police detective tries to quell her concerns over the peculiar death with, “Green Haven ain’t Cabot Cove, and you’re not Angela Lansbury.”
Greenlaw keeps the intrigue going throughout. When her sleuth investigates the dead man’s house with a only a flashlight and a dead cell phone, Greenlaw’s writing is superbly creepy, like a grownup Nancy Drew mystery.
The author works in topical issues like cod-fishing regulations, wind power, local economies, development, and working waterfronts, but never preaches as she makes her views known via Jane Bunker. Working Waterfront gets a mention as lying on a coffee table at the sneaky processing plant owner’s office. The author has an ease to move between big issues and easy dialogue. Here and there some character’s words don’t quite ring true regarding vocabulary and phrasing, but all in all it’s a total pleasure to read.
If anyone can write with authority about a raging storm at sea on a commercial boat, Greenlaw can, and what a scene it is. Her description of a trawler’s battle with angry seas at a crucial moment is hair-raising and filled with precise details of the boat’s gear and I’ll say no more. Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm may have brought Greenlaw to the public’s radar screens, but when she talks boats in danger, she’s been there.
Like a symphony in which the bombastic parts come near the end, Greenlaw builds tension and suspense perfectly. What a terrific first novel and let’s hope there will be more for Jane Bunker to investigate.
Linda Beyus writes regularly for Working Waterfront. For more on Linda Greenlaw, see page 17.