Shallow Water

Keith Austin
AuthorHouse (2010)
ISBN 9781452071237
Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (12/10)

 

When Kevin Sinclair woke up that morning, little did he know that he would be involved in industrial espionage and murder. His morning started out like any other, except this morning he was to meet up with his client, Tony Spencer. Tony’s company wanted to lay fiber optic phone cable in the ocean from Bermuda to Manasquan, New Jersey and Kevin was the middleman that set it all up. Tony needed a company that had the capability to do the work and Kevin had a long- time friend and business associate Kurt Van Hedrick that could get the job done.

They cruise to Bermuda in Kurt’s yacht. Arriving earlier than the cable laying ship, they manage to do some sport diving. In the course of their underwater explorations, they come upon an underwater cave and a suspicious submarine base. Going in to investigate the cave, they come across a Spanish treasure. They steal the treasure and the adventure begins. They are confronted by gangsters that want the treasure and will stop at nothing to get it. A Russian-speaking Ukrainian spy and a submarine full of hostile Navy sailors that want the code for the repeaters (for the phone cable). With this code, they could listen in on all the phone conversations throughout the world.

The cable ship no sooner gets the third repeater settled in at the bottom of the ocean when they are boarded by the Spy and the sailors from the submarine. They demanded to know the code for the repeater and when neither Tony nor anyone else can give them the information, the Spy orders them to take her down in the submersible. Kurt and the Spy go down and find the first repeater but it doesn’t have the code so they go up empty handed and the ship moves to the next one.

When Kurt and the Spy go down this time, the Spy finds the repeater that will give her the code and the excitement builds.

“Shallow Water” is a good story and the 253 pages are fairly fast paced and easy to read. The lack of good editing is somewhat of a drawback to what could be a good seller. With its misspelled words and improper use of grammar, it tended to interrupt the mindset as the story evolved. I liked the book; the character development was solid, the storyline interesting and the cover eye-catching. I gave it an impressive rating of a B-.

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