The book starts with a prologue about a ghost appearing to Genevieve “Gen” Wallace during a treasure hunting dive off the coast of Key West and warning her to “beware.” That’s the best part of the book—it’s downhill from there. Gen belongs to a group of treasure divers who have joined with another group following clues to the location of the Marie Josephine, which sank around 1820, supposedly loaded with gold. Graham does a very good job handling the dialog and interactions of the members of the group as they talk and banter away over insignificant subjects—not an easy writing task. Graham also has excellent descriptive powers. It should have been an excellent book. So where did it go wrong?
The story line; The ghost had great promise. Then nothing happens. The ghost appears a few more times and leaves puddles of seawater around Gen’s bed when she sleeps. The first three-quarters of the book is mostly a lot of the group bantering and information about South Florida that does not move the plot. There is some setup of some plot points, most of which turn out to be unimportant in the resolution.
The descriptions; This is one of Graham’s strong points. However, the book is overloaded with descriptions—of things that are superfluous. It reads a lot like a Key West Chamber of Commerce pamphlet. She does give excellent descriptions of characters when they first appear. As a result, I knew a lot about them, and I filled in the blanks with my imagination. Then the next time they appear Graham adds more description. This kind of messes up what I had added. This goes on and on with some characters until I realized my imagination and participation were not needed.
The dialect: Dialect is a good way to differentiate characters. Graham uses a dialect that stands out, using things like, “Hey, it’s all real stuff “– “Hell, I’m accusing you right now” – “Hey…for every tale out there” – “But, hey, let me see your palm” – “She headed back for her cottage.” This is done very well—except—all or most of characters use that dialect, the narrator uses it, even a ghost uses it. Hell, that gets overwhelmingly tiresome and boring and hey, rather than helping to differentiate characters, it begins to befuddle them.
The group: Graham handled the interaction of the group very well when she first introduced the group, so well that that was enough to get to know it. However, the group is together so often it becomes a pseudo character. Fairly soon, the bantering interaction becomes boring. At about three-quarters of the way through, the plot finally begins to pick up, at which point Graham brings it to a skidding stop by putting the group together and, “They talked in circles.” That statement by the narrator would be enough because the reader has seen the group talking in circles many times before. Unfortunately, Graham feels that the flow of the story should be broken at this point by taking us through the actual talking in circles experience—again.
The Sex: A couple forms spontaneously when one character goes to a character’s cabin (a character she doesn’t like) in the middle of the night and they hop into bed. Graham is fairly descriptive (not pornographic) of the experience. Then they wake up in the middle of the night to have sex again and then again before breakfast. From then on they have sex every night, and we have to be told about it. Pretty soon the sex gets boring—if that’s possible.
The characters’ actions: The initiation of the sex described above didn’t really fit the characterization of one of the participants. Here is another example. A character who Gen really cares about goes missing and it is suspected that a serial killer has her. Several very important things are happening regarding the plot and the killer at the same time. The book is really beginning to move. It is at this point that Graham thinks it’s a good time to bring it all to another skidding halt by having Gen and Thor follow up on a clue in Miami (about three and a half hours away). This is a clue they had for several days before the plot started to move. After some gratuitous sex, they spend the night bar hopping, looking for the clue. The next morning, they decide the best way to search for the clue is to rent a boat and check all the harbors and boat launches in the Miami area. Gen decides she doesn’t want to be disturbed while driving a boat in the open sea looking for harbors, etc. She so much doesn’t want be disturbed while doing this that she turns her cell phone off and so does Thor—meaning if there is any news about the person she cares about or if something in the mystery breaks, no one is going to be able to contact them. And she is soooo concerned about this person she really cares about that she forgets to turn her phone back on. Go figure. Oh—and the clue in Miami is actually not important in the resolution.
The ghost: The ghost is my favorite character. Graham describes her very well and the ghost has almost no dialog—no chance to engage in the boring dialect. The ghost sets up the story and plays a prominent role in the resolution.
I gave Graham a star because she is a good writer, (New York Times bestselling author, according to the cover). Unfortunately, the pieces didn’t come together for this novel.