The Sea Detective

Douglas-Home’s well-executed first novel offers an original hook, an increasingly rare occurrence in the ever-more-crowded mystery field. Cal McGill, of Edinburgh’s Flotsam and Jetsam Investigations, assists environmental groups by using wind speed and ocean current data to backtrack pollution to its source. Why seven severed feet have washed ashore on North America’s West Coast during a 15-month period intrigues McGill, but he eventually gets a more pressing case involving an Indian girl, Preeti, sold by her family into prostitution at 13 for 60,000 rupees, a record amount for her impoverished village near Mumbai. Three years after Preeti is taken out to sea in a boat and dumped overboard to drown, her murder comes to McGill’s attention. Douglas-Home poignantly portrays the degradation of Preeti and her fellow child prostitutes, while McGill makes a nicely understated hero, well positioned to sustain a series. Agent: Maggie Pearlstine, Maggie Pearlstine Associates. (Dec.)