Trusting Viktor: A Cleo Cooper Mystery

With more twists and turns than a roller-coaster, Mims’s second outing for Cleo Cooper (after 2013’s Hiding Gladys) has the geologist risking her life savings on a new gas well off the shore of North Carolina. During Cleo’s first night aboard the drill ship Magellan, she goes to investigate a curious item on deck and is attacked and almost raped by an unknown assailant. Soon afterward, crewmember Nuvuk Hunter’s dead body is discovered floating in the water, causing Cleo to wonder if he was her attacker. Cleo, now under police suspicion for Nuvuk’s death, finds one bright spot onboard the Magellan: handsome geologist Victor Kozlov, who previously saved her from a diving mishap. The mystery deepens when the mysterious item proves to have come from a sunken German U-boat. Mims ably transforms the dirty, unglamorous business of well drilling into a breezily entertaining whodunit. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (Feb.)