CLOSE-HAULED

A 20-year naval veteran may not see a 21st after his commanding officer orders him to conduct an off-the-books murder investigation in this novel.

There are times when a man’s entire career is on the line, times where one critical mistake can cost him everything he has worked for. For CPO Sim Greene, finding out who killed retired naval Lt. Barry St. James is one of those times. Greene, who lives aboard his boat, the Figaro, found the submerged, tortured body himself. The victim was a shipmate and friend of his CO, who, despite the fact that the Navy doesn’t have jurisdiction, orders Greene to find out who killed him and to retrieve sensitive documents that could embarrass the Navy. If Greene is successful, his application for the chief warrant officer program and promotion to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are assured. If he is not, he’ll go “from Chief Petty Officer to E-Nothin’ in no time at all.” Greene doesn’t have much to go on: no witnesses, no angry family members, no obvious, identifiable suspects. But he’s a sailor who gets things done with the help of his boat dock neighbor Al Higgins, a former Navy SEAL–turned–Ph.D. Greene is described as someone who doesn’t have the greatest appreciation for accepted military procedure and can be difficult to deal with, but Avery doesn’t sink him with hard-boiled clichés. In this series starter, Greene is tough yet appealingly vulnerable (“The vision of a drowned man looking at me in horror from the other side of death kept me awake for some time”). The missing-documents subplot doesn’t hold water next to the compelling murder mystery, but the book is buoyed by memorable turns of phrase, such as “Nothing dies of old age in the sea.”

This series opener starring a Navy sleuth makes a big splash.