Bilge Water Bones — Glynn Marsh Alam

Bilge Water Bones is the fourth in the Luanne Fogarty series of gripping mysteries set in the swamps and underwater caves of Northern Florida where Luanne serves as adjunct scuba diver for the sheriff's department. Swamp grown eccentrics appear when a teenage boy goes missing after a wild night of boating antics that result in an accident. But do eccentrics commit murder? Sheriff's diver, Luanne Fogarty, faces her own mortality when she aids in the search for the teen's body, presumed drowned, and runs into an old skeleton in the bilge of a sunken boat.

Alam's writing is lyrical, shot through with sly humor and affection for the denizens of the swamp. Bilge Water Bones begins: "The waters of the South are like its people, strong with underlying evils and a beauty that lasts forever. And like the people they hide ghosts that ride the surface in the early morning mists when the water is warmer than the air. Sometimes the mists sweep through the palmetto bushes on shore and creep between the heavy oaks like a grand lady's white handkerchief, folding in and out, rising from the forest floor now, crawling back into the bottom scrub, only to reappear on the front porch and lie in wait for the blistering sun to evaporate all but the memory…"