Glynn Marsh Alam - HIGH WATER HELLION

HIGH WATER HELLION
A Luanne Fogarty Mystery
by Glynn Marsh Alam
ISBN 0-9725078-6-8

Trade Paperback Fall 2006
$12.95

In this fifth installment of the Luanne Fogarty mystery series, Luanne has headed south into the flat lake, snake, and gator country of central Florida with her scuba gear and canoe—seems her boss, macho Detective Amado, has finally been forced to ask Luanne's help. His beloved old aunt is dead and strange things are disappearing into the murky watery gator-mating ground behind the old lady’s house. And blowing east from the steamy Gulf of Mexico is a hurricane that threatens another kind of violence. Will Luanne catch the human killers and get back to her beloved swamp before it's too late?

Favorite characters—Pasquin, Luanne’s Cajun octogenarian neighbor, Vernon her lover and fellow diver, and Marshall Long, medical examiner—are back for the dangerous ride as Luanne and Tony bring them into the search while the local law enforcement battles the wind and water of the hurricane.

“Gators, bottomless caves, mucky sinkholes, blood-sucking mosquitoes and drippy humidity come together in a Florida swamp to provide the perfect eerie elements for murder…. The story lines flow like the Palmetto River, which hides another world beneath its smooth surface.”
— Dawn Goldsmith

“Inventive, stylish…manages to bring to life yet another part of Florida’s seemingly endless killing grounds: the deep and cold freshwater springs of the northern part of the state….”

— Dick Adler, The Chicago Tribune

"Alam's novels are thoroughly enjoyable. They offer, in addition to a good read, a fascinating look at the swampland of northern Florida and the world of diving in mysterious rivers and bottomless caves."
— Lauren Haney, author of the Lieutenant Bak ancient Egyptian mysteries

Mystery Scene
Holiday Edition 2006
Review by Diana Vickery
(4 quills)

Linguistic professor Luanne Fogarty moonlights as a “temp” for police agencies in need of an experienced crime-scene diver. Tony Amado, a sheriff’s detective from Tallahassee, Florida, calls her from the home of his late aunt, Marta Keen, in Ocklawaha, outside Ocala. Tony asks Luanne to travel there in her ’84 Honda station wagon to dive in the lake near Miz Keen’s home to locate something his aunt threw in the water. Although she’s anticipating a hurricane will hit the Florida coast, Luanne abandons her home to make the trek to help Tony out.

Miz Keen, a nonagenarian, had insisted an autopsy be performed when she died. The coroner complies and is stunned to discover she was murdered, and not the victim of a heart attack as suspected. Luanne is reluctantly drawn into the investigation of the old woman’s murder. Soon Miz Keen’s home is filled to the rafters with other law-enforcement types who are called in the case, which may include victims other than Tony’s aunt. Luanne questions the neighbors: JoJo Bone, his wife Cara and their oddball 14-year-old son Gil; Old Man Ferguson and his son Burl, who runs the Fireside Bar; and Mildred Calley an elderly friend of Miz Keen’s.

Glynn Marsh Alam presents a side of Florida few tourists see: a dark place where everyone has secrets. The physical picture she paints is so realistic, readers’ hair will frizz up or go limp in the humidity, and they’ll get a creepy-crawly feeling from her description of the creatures that inhabit the area. Luanne Fogarty is a great heroine… gutsy with a soft side… and the secondary characters most intriguing,. I particularly liked Pasquin, Luanne’s neighbor, who wants her to hurry up and marry Vernon, her current love interest and fellow diver.

High Water Hellion is the fifth Luanne Fogarty mystery. Although I hadn’t read the first four, the book easily stood on its own. It did make me want to go back to get more of Luanne’s back story, and I think many readers will feel the same way.

Other books by Glynn Marsh Alam:
Dive Deep and Deadly, Deep Water Death, Cold Water Corpse, Bilge Water Bones, Green Water Ghost and River Whispers

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