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COASTAL DISTURBANCE
by Jessica Speart
Avon, February 2003
304 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0380820625


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Rachel Porter is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife field agent who comforts the afflicted, especially when the afflicted are members of endangered species, and afflicts the comfortable, especially those who are a little too eager to misuse their money and power in ways that are harmful to the wildlife Rachel is sworn to protect. Rather than assuring her success in her career, this behavior has put Rachel in her superiors' sights as a problem employee, one they move from undesirable assignment to even more undesirable assignment.

Coastal Disturbance finds Rachel in Georgia's coastal swampland. She's isolated once again (although she's sharing a house with her lover, FBI agent Jake Santou), but even in southern Georgia Rachel manages to butt heads with some major players, included a former Undersecretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, who is now aspiring to elected office. Rachel fears that the old wildlife agent joke -- "Bust the wrong hunter and you'll find yourself transferred to the Okefenokee Swamp" -- could come true for her, but she doesn't have it in her to back down.

Rachel soon forgets about her difficulties with the former Undersecretary when her friend Gary, a Fish and Wildlife containment specialist, makes her aware of an illegal manatee water park operating within her jurisdiction. Rachel is appalled by the way the manatees are being mistreated and curious as to where the operator obtained them. She knows she won't rest until the water park is shut down. What she doesn't know is that there are others who won't rest until they stop her.

Rachel is accustomed by now to work-related headaches, but they're catching up with her. The stresses in her personal life -- adjusting to sharing her home, if not all the details of her life, with Jake -- aren't helping and Rachel is having a little more trouble sleeping, a few more bad dreams, and an inclination to drink more than a bit more than she probably should. Could all this make her manatee investigation the one that finally brings her to her knees?

Rachel Porter is a complex, likable protagonist. Fans of this series have watched her grow and change, while always remaining true to herself, and Coastal Disturbance won't disappoint them. Even readers who have never before had the pleasure of spending time with Rachel will find themselves hooked.

Speart has a remarkable ability to make her book's locales come alive and she hits the mark once again in taking her readers to the swamps of Georgia. The flora, the fauna, the smells, the quicksand-like mud; all of it is as real as if the reader were actually tromping through the marshes or driving past the pine trees. So vibrant is the setting, and so integral to the story, that it could as well be another character. That's no small thing considering how compelling even the minor characters are in Speart's books. It's a too-rare talent to given even minor players their own unique voice and it's a talent Speart consistently demonstrates.

Coastal Disturbance will appeal to readers of both traditional and edgier mysteries. Well-written, with a nicely-layered mystery at its center and an element of suspense throughout, this new book is the strongest entry yet in an exceptional series.

Reviewed by Susan Anderson, March 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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