Dive Deep and Deadly

Luanne Fogarty Mysteries #1

by Glynn Marsh Alam

Luanne Fogarty, adjunct scuba diver and reluctant linguistics professor, makes her debut in Glynn Marsh Alam’s first novel, DIVE DEEP and DEADLY, set in the swamps outside Tallahassee.

Born in a swamp house, Luanne has returned to the dilapidated structure after her father’s death. She lives on the Palmetto River, between the glass bottomed boat park of Palmetto Spring and the tiny river town of Fogarty Spring. Her nearest neighbor and friend is the octogenarian Cajun, Dorian Pasquin.

Luanne’s struggle to repair the house comes to a halt when sheriff’s detective, Tony Amado, asks her to check out one of the deep underwater caves at Palmetto Spring where some boys have reported seeing a body. Luanne, a scuba diver who has a lifetime of familiarity with the dangerous caverns, goes down and locates the body of an elderly woman. When the regular sheriff’s deputies dive the next morning to retrieve the body, it has disappeared.

Genres: Mystery

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Glynn Marsh Alam is a native Floridian. Born in Tallahassee, she is familiar with the live oak forests and cypress swamps of the area. She also knows the sink holes and reptilia that abound there. She often swims in the cold, clear springs above the openings to fathomless caves. These are the settings for her Luanne Fogarty mystery series and for her literary novel, River Whispers.
After graduating from Florida State University, Glynn worked as a decoder/translator for the National Security Agency in D.C., then moved to Los Angeles where she taught writing and literature and earned an MA in linguistics. After many years of traveling back to Florida twice a year, she has now moved there and writes full time.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun fast read. It takes place in the swamps of Florida, the heroine is a diver that has come home after the death of her father. She is a professor on leave for a year working to renovate her family home when she becomes involved in a cocaine trafficking case with dead bodies piling up, hidden in the caves of the swamps. I enjoyed this novel, it took me away for a few hours. I was able to see the swamps and picture the characters involved. If you want a fun read pick this one up.

[Klp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Badly needs editing

This book is well worth reading. An expert scuba diver who lives in a swamp and helps police solve murders makes for an entertaining story from beginning to end. But once again, a book that was converted from print to an ebook is full of errors that a good editor would have found and corrected! It would only take one pass to correct errors that are primarily words that are run together. As a reader, I find the errors that are rampant in e-books more than irritating! It is jarring to be reading a good story at a fast clip, only to be brought up short by a jumbled mess of three words run together. It occurs repeatedly throughout this book and I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of a greedy publisher clearly relying on some type of automated process to do the conversion to e-book format. This is simply unacceptable! The reading public is not stupid. We all know that profits from e-books are almost certainly higher because there are no printing or shipping costs! I would like to think, but seriously doubt, that the extra profit goes to the author. The e-books coming from publishing houses are not inexpensive. If one invests in such a book, clearly it is not too much to ask for a book that has been edited by a human and is free of typographical errors!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#1 in the Luanne Fogarty series. I love finding a new series of books to read; Dive Deep and Deadly (2000) is a debut novel for author Glynn Marsh Alam and begins a 7 book series published between 2000 and 2009. The protagonist is a 45 year old college linguistics professor who would much rather be a scuba diver. With a small inheritance, she has taken a leave from school and is rehabbing the ancestral home, in Florida's Tallahassee swamps, received in the inheritance from her father. The sense of place in this book is one of strongest reasons for reading it, add to that a likeable main character and a good story.

Luanne Fogarty is enjoying her time off from teaching linguistics by rebuilding her family home deep in the swamps of northern Florida when her contract job diving for the police gets her involved in a mystery. She finds a body tied to an underwater cave, but the next morning, it's gone. Exploring a second cave, she finds a second body. Is there a connection? And if so, what is it? And who is the unidentified first woman and where is her body?

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

10/16/05 #181
TITLE/AUTHOR: DIVE DEEP AND DEADLY by Glynn Marsh Alam
RATING: 4/B
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Mystery, 2000, 236 pgs
COMMENTS: 1st in Luanne Fogarty series. Set in N Fl
amidst the swamps and natural springs. Luanne is a
middle-aged language professor and skilled diver.
She is rebuilding her family home in the isolated
swamps and is currently w/o wiring for phones.
Several bodies are discovered in some local spring
water caves -- an older woman who had not lived
in the area for over 20 years and a local young
woman from the Greek community.

[Mark Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luanne Fogarty is a diver who helps out the sheriff's department when needed. When she finds a body in a cave but it is gone by the time they return, she gets involved in a strange mystery. The writing is so vivid you feel like you are diving with Luanne. And the mystery keeps you turning pages.

Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn’t love New Orleans bayous and swamps where hungry, sly gators wait in the murky waters. Corpses and bodies are found and the series ( long out of print) was a must- read for me. Sadly, the author abruptly stopped writing and I lost a favorite author.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book, it was great. I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to read the next one. The author really makes you feel like you are there in the swamp with the alligators.