It’s my reading alter ego checking in with another crime thriller. This series involves underwater investigation, and I absolutely love that because I’m learning about how they procedurally do that type of investigation. I also love the main character, Sloan. She’s complex and formidable with so much heart for her work.This time the team is investigating a van found at the bottom of a pond. Unfortunately, there are victims inside, but what happened? Andrew Mayne is a skilled and efficient writer...

Black Coral is a murder mystery where no one believes a crime has been committed until bodies abound. Sloan McPherson is a young tough detective and diver who can’t help but act before she thinks. Black Coral is the second book in the Underwater Investigation Unit series by the prolific author Andrew Mayne.Sloan McPherson literally bumps into a van containing 4 bodies during a dive to retrieve another submerged car. Everyone, except Sloan, assumes the van was lost in an accident. In spite of rep...

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2021/03/08/...Coming to this from Andrew Mayne’s The Naturalist series, Underwater Investigation Unit is definitely his tamer and more traditional police procedural crime thriller, though of course with the added hook of solving water-related mysteries and diving for evidence recovery in submerged crime scenes.Black Coral is the second novel in the sequence, but can easily be enjoyed as a standalone. Once more we follow protagonist Sloa...

So glad to have the opportunity to read this second installment so soon after reading the first, and Mayne doesn't disappoint. Sloan McPherson possesses unique skills as a member of a Florida police unit in that she is an intrepid diver, who sometimes goes rogue and takes chances that jeopardize an investigation. While working another case in the murky waters of an alligator's playground known as Pond 35, she discovers a submerged van that answers a 30 year old riddle and opens a heartbreaking c...

7/10 starsMy full review can be found on my blog here.Andrew Mayne has been getting a lot of good reviews – and a lot of publicity – in recent years. Specializing in well, specialist police procedurals/mystery thrillers, where the protagonists have each unique skillsets and viewpoints markedly different from your run-of-the-mill police detectives, Mayne made a name for himself. I guess his previous career as an illusionist gave him a lot of experience in creating intricate structures and patienc...

I am really enjoying this series. It did not take long for me to once again get sucked back in. The book read like a really good prime time CSI type drama. The heroine Sloane is such a badass and I love her. Sloane works for a still unrecognized and new offshoot department connected to the police force in Florida called the underwater investigation unit. Most of her colleagues think the program is pointless and shouldn’t exist thus they have a lot of pushback and confrontation from within. Witho...

If you’re looking for a fast paced, entertaining police procedural, this is it. Sloan McPherson is a detective and underwater diver for the Florida UIU. The book starts off with a bang as she attempts to retrieve a body from a submerged car while avoiding Big Bill, a 1000# alligator. While underwater, she spots a van nearby and her spidey sense is engaged. Turns out, there are four bodies in it. This is the second in the series, but worked well as a standalone. But book one, The Girl Beneath the...

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Andrew Mayne, and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.Andrew Mayne is back with another police procedural that will have the reader thinking outside the box (as well as off land). With his Underwater Investigation Unit, Mayne utilises the world of police work under the water with Sloan McPherson as lead diver. In Black Coral, the discovery of four teens from de...

Black Coral is the second instalment in the Underwater Investigation Unit (UIU) series, set in Florida. Detective Sloan McPherson, a diver for the Florida UIU, is called in to retrieve a corpse from the 'gator-infested Pond 65 after a car ended up submerged having run off the road; of the two individuals in the car one had survived and one was not so lucky. As the task is in progress, however, Sloan stumbles upon a sunken van containing four bodies requiring a second more extensive search, which...

tl;dr: The second book in the Underwater Investigation Unit series completely blows the first book out of the water (forgive me). More grounded cases make this book far easier to buy into and the introduction of a new character helps add some more personality to the book. There are regular twists and turns throughout the novel and the weaving together of two cases helps keep the book interesting throughout. I blew through this in one day and I now rank it among my favourite thrillers.Summary: Sl...

Another great book by Andrew Mayne. The second book in the series about Sloan McPherson and the Underwater Investigation Unit is as good as the first one. You can also read it as a stand-alone without too much trouble.Mayne is great at building a complex and interesting storyline and combining it with lots of action. This story does not slow down for a moment, from the first scene where Sloan pulls one body out of the water, finds a suspicious van under the water, and meets a local celebrity, th...

Well that was something different and hugely enjoyable. 4.5 stars rounded down to 4(explained later and a minor gripe stopping it being a 5 star read)Sloan McPherson is a police diver working in Florida. She works for the Underwater Investigative Unit and is assigned to a case of a car going off a bridge into a pond. When she dives and discovers the car, she also discovers a van with four bodies inside nearby. It turns out they are the bodies of four young local people that went missing 30 years...

I always enjoy an Andrew Mayne book. This is the second Sloan McPherson book. Her family are a bit on the wrong side of the law at times but Sloan is an expert diver and an archaeologist and is now working as an investigator for the Underwater Investigation Unit (UIU) set up by the Florida Governor and working hand in hand with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.While pulling a body out of a submerged car in Pond 65 she finds a submerged van and is very keen to investigate it. Her boss, G...

Black Coral is the second book in the mystery series Underwater Investigation Unit. I enjoyed the first book, The Girl Beneath the Sea, so I was looking forward to reading the latest addition to the series. This continues to be a great series. Black Coral can be read as a standalone, but I recommend starting with the first book.In Black Coral, the Underwater Investigation Unit is called to the scene of a van at the bottom of a pond. This discovery leads to a suspenseful hunt for a serial killer....