Linda Greenlaw, a successful swordfishing boat captain, is not just the sole female captain, but the only woman in the swordboat fleet off the coast of New England in 1998. Sebastian Junger wrote about her in “The Perfect Storm,” which went on to be a popular movie. Greenlaw wrote the memoir “The Hungry Ocean” in 1999, telling of a 30-day swordfishing voyage, and she has also authored a 4-book mystery series starting with the book of this post, Slipknot.
I had just finished “Captains Courageous,” and I thought I would read Greenlaw’s cozy mystery, which I found in the Yukon River cabin I am staying in, and then read Billy Budd by Herman Melville to round out a set of 3 books about the sea and seafaring. I like to read books with a connection of some sort so that I can compare them.
However, I might have to DNF Slipknot. I had given up reading cozy mysteries for the most part but will read one on occasion if it’s a new author or an intriguing setting. But the book needs something to keep my interest to overcome the coziness, and Slipknot does not have any oomph, and definitely not enough to make up for its cheesiness and other flaws.
The story begins in fictitious Green Haven, Maine, where a rookie marine insurance inspector, Jane Bunker, runs into a corpse on a rock beach on her way to inspect a fish packing plant. Bunker is a little old to be so new at a job, but she was a longtime detective in Florida before leaving that job and moving back to where she was born to start fresh. In the first 50 pages of the book, we meet the plant foreman, who seems to know more about Bunker than he’s willing to admit, the plant manager, a local waitress who is the font of all gossip, and a man who was fired from the plant, is angry, and noses his way into practically every conversation. I’m sure there are more suspects to come.
Bunker grew up and lived in Florida until the time of the novel, but magically uses all the right terminology for the fishing and seagoing industry, as if she worked in it instead of for the police and then in insurance investigation. This is her first time doing a plant inspection, and although she has read the OSHA regulations and knows them in and out, that doesn’t explain why she can instantly spot safety violations within seconds of entering the work floor. Reading and first-hand experience are two different things.
I can put aside such incongruities if those are the only faults of the story, but there are problems with the writing as well. I have never had such a tough time keeping up with the details of the story in a book that is aimed for a general market as I have with this one. I have had to read convoluted sentences multiple times, gone back to reread paragraphs to see if there were antecedents to the actions in the paragraph I’m on, and there were times when the sentences simply did not make sense. I wondered if Greenlaw simply had a list of cute little phrases that she wanted to use somewhere in a book and created situations where those bits might work (see quote above). She admits being a list-maker in her seafaring job, and so I could see in the writing where she was working from a list.
Not to spoil anything, but as with many a cozy mystery, I have already thought ahead to how some of the scenarios will play out and based on my track record with other supposedly-easy-reading novels, I have a feeling I know how much of the plot will work out. Of course, I could be surprised, but I’m not counting on it.
On the other hand, I have started reading The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw’s first memoir, and am really enjoying it. Someday I might get back to Slipknot, but not any time soon.
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