Deep Sea Dead
by Lori Avocato
Published by Avon Books
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Erica Marston
Pauline Sokol, nurse-turned-private investigator, is aboard a cruise ship bound for Bermuda. Her first solo assignment is to uncover who is responsible for the ship's medical insurance fraud, but when her cabin mate is murdered after a nurse disappears, Pauline finds herself with an even bigger mystery to solve.
Deep Sea Dead, the fourth title in the Pauline Sokol mystery series by author Lori Avocato, doesn't succeed in staying afloat.
Avocato can't seem to decide if she's writing a mystery or "chick lit." More emphasis is placed on describing the protagonist's clothing and her crush on her mentor than to the development and intricacies of a good whodunit.
The style is often juvenile ("Soon little dolphin heads popped out of the top of the tank...I think the smaller of the three smiled at me...") and the reader frequently struggles to grasp for missing details about character relationships--even the characters themselves--that one can only assume were developed in earlier books in the series.
The unraveling of the mystery is anti-climactic and even confusing, but there's little time to dwell on the disappointment before the reader's focus is returned to Pauline's love life and her little dolphin friends.
Armchair Interviews says: Throw this one back.