The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne

An Amazon Charts bestseller. For a Florida police diver, danger rises to the surface in an adventurous thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist. Coming from scandalous Florida treasure hunters and drug smugglers, Sloan McPherson is forging her own path, for herself and for her daughter, out from under her family's shadow. An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she's the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal--a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan's. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren't the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer. Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan's uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs--and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies--both known and unknown--and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.

I like the book... but there are some definite inaccuracies involved in the descriptions of scuba diving. And that's super nitpicky, and doesn't affect the plot at all, but it's like trying to walk with a tiny bit of sand in your shoe. It just keeps distracting me and rubbing at me the wrong way.

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The heroine, Sloan McPherson, a PhD candidate, and a local police recovery diver, is diving in a Southern Florida canal looking for archaeological finds for her advisor. When she surfaces, she discovers a body floating in the canal that was not there when she started her dive. She calls 911, and police show up. They asked her for her driver's license. Since she still is in her wet suit, she goes to her car to get her purse. She discovers that her driver's license is missing. Sloan says to herself, “The killer knows who I am. The killer knows where I live.” My attention captured right there.

The main storyline proceeds with high tension scenes with adequate twists, turns, and misdirection's that kept my interest. The author stacked the deck for tension not only with the antagonists but also within the protagonists. Sloan is very independent and will do what she thinks best at the time even if it goes against her training and surely test her physical limits. Her father who taught her how to scuba dive took her out on many treasure-hunting expeditions, some of which he may not have reported to the state of Florida. He also helped a friend built custom boats with hidden compartment. There is Run, a nickname, for the father of Sloan's young daughter. He helps significantly in parenting responsibilities, but Sloan will not marry him. Lastly, there is George Solar who was the lead investigator of Sloan's uncle Karl for drug smuggling who now lives rent free at the pleasure of the State of Florida. Eternal hatred would be too light of a description of Sloan's feelings towards George. At times, the internal conflict seems greater than the external conflict. Most of the above is provided by extensive B-storyline threads significantly in the beginning of the novel but still throughout the novel.

There are not any intimate scenes in the novel, but Sloan has the mouth of a sailor. Also, Jackie, her young daughter, has a mouth on her also. There is some violence but even though much of it is described as it happens, it was not near to being over the top. So, if you are offended by excessive language, reader be warned.

The only aspect of this novel that left a little questioning was several of the underwater scenes. I am not a scuba or free diver, but they seem stretching the envelope of credibility, but this is a work of fiction. They kept the tension high and the story line flowing. Overall, my assessment of this book is an action thriller. It was quick and easy and a series that I will continue to read the next book comes out in 2021.