I've just had an unexpected experience. I've been reading a novel subtitled The Perfect Murder... Underwater, set in a British dive club based in the Forest of Dean which, as it happens, is where the author's real-life dive club is based.
I don't know about Sue Rawle's own Forest Pirates, but as we learn more about the members of the club she has dreamt up, we realise that what initially appears to be a typical bunch of divers and their families is in fact an incident-pitful of deadly sinners.
This is not the surprise, however - it's the quality of the writing. Diving fiction has rarely been well-served in the past, but here is a book with three-dimensional characters, careful plotting, well-researched procedural passages and, most unexpected of all, dialogue that is consistently convincing.
Best of all, the reader isn't battered over the head with involved explanations of diving procedure, which authors usually seem to feel is necessary if they are to have a chance of winning a mainstream audience.
Non-divers don't need the manual, just to know enough to understand what's going on.
There are places where the characters' motivation and reactions don't quite convince, or tension is lost, but this is soon forgotten as the story sweeps along like a rising tide.
Sue Rawle's favourite pastimes are diving and crime fiction, and Deep Trouble, while not exactly a whodunnit, is crime fiction written with a deft enough touch to keep you turning the pages with enthusiasm.
I'm giving nothing away about the plot, but the Diving Diseases Research Centre in Plymouth, which does play a role, will receive 50p from each copy sold, so buy the book and put something back. I don't think you'll regret it.
Steve Weinman
Troubador Publishing
ISBN: 9780956637208
Softback, 342pp, £7.99
