Despite its name, “Surface Tension” contains very little actual tension. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that I included it in my #MandarayReads hashtag on Twitter, I probably would’ve dumped this book half way through. And, to be honest…I wouldn’t have missed much.Not only does “Surface Tension” hand you the plot (and all of the bad guys behind it) on a silver platter, but there are so many people doing so many stupid, irrational things that it’s hard to care if any of them end up dead. Worse yet, instead of relying on actual events to move the plot forward, Kling instead makes her protagonist (Seychelle) go and do a bunch of ridiculously stupid and reckless things. The book is less Seychelle solving a crime, and more her reacting to a situation with a loud declaration of, “I’m going to go do this crazy-dangerous thing alone! AT NIGHT!” Then wondering why she gets hit over the head so often.The other thing about this book is that it is BRIMMING with strange, aggravating, unnecessary, and oftentimes offensive descriptors. The most grievous instance of this is near the beginning of the book, when Seychelle’s lawyer friend Jeannie is introduced. Would you like to guess what Jeannie’s central characteristic is? Is it… the fact she’s a sucessfull businesswoman? A kindhearted, wise soul? The mother of three children? The survivor of a lackluster marriage with a dude who treated her poorly? An independent, take-no-nonsense woman?Nope! It’s that she’s fat.Kling spends an entire page driving home the fact that Jeannie is overweight. For instance, Seychelle makes sure not to sit on the couch with her because she’s “afraid she’ll be pulled into Jeannie’s lap”. Then, Sey is fixated by the “rolls of fat” which “nearly consume her gold watch” as Jeannie rests her arm on a table. After that, Sey makes a mental comment about Jeannie’s “trademark” muumuus that she wears all of the time. In fact, pretty much any time Jeannie is mentioned in this book–even when she’s just talking to Sey on the phone–Kling takes a moment to let us know that she’s fat.This isn’t an isolated incident. Seychelle is obssessed with how people look. She comments not only on her own body, (which of course she finds ugly and awkward but everyone else finds extremely attractive! ’cause I haven’t seen enough of THAT trope yet) but the bodies of her dead mother, her friends, and even her brothers. She compares herself to other women constantly in terms of who is more or less attractive; even 15 year olds.To make matters worse, Seychelle has seriously weird issues with sex work. Her inner monologues often include speech about how sex workers “dirty” an area or cheapen it, and in her mind there is no difference between prostitution and lap dances. (Yes that is an actual sentence in this book.) Like many, she also assumes that sex workers exist to be pitied, and that they of course absolutely hate their line of work. If only someone could come along and save them! Barf.Kling clearly knows her stuff when it comes to boats... (So much so I frequently got the impression she was showing off her nautical knowledge at the expense of the plot.) but despite this, she fails to paint a very clear picture of the Fort Lauderdale community in which this story takes place. Maybe she assumed we’ve all been to Florida, or that talking a bit about neon lights, Haitians, and hookers would be enough? I don’t know. What I do know is it felt like the characters were acting out their dramas on TV set instead of a living, breathing city.The sad part is, this book seemed so tight in the beginning! There are elements of it which are genuinely good! But they get lost in this weird fog of boring exposition and bizarre descriptors. It’s frustrating. Kling even has a diverse cast…but then doesn’t follow through by fleshing them out in the same way she does the main (white) character.All in all, my final impression of “Surface Tension” is that it’s 50% boring, 5% good, and 45% a strange, spastic experience which spends too much time exposing the serious issues the author has with certain subsets of society to be any good as a thriller. Unless you are in dire need of nautical jargon and underwater scuba fights…give this one a pass, folks.
Could have finished this last night, but just wasn't that interested in it so I put it down 25 pages from the end. Why? It sagged the last third of the book and kept sagging until it really got tiresome. Most times I cannot and will not do that. I'll read until after midnight if needed. If the rating would let me rate the book in thirds, I would give the first two-thirds a 3.5 or 3.75. But no can do. It started with a bang and a real mystery and kept getting better. Like I said, in the final third it started its decline and toward the ending, just got really messy. A couple of little things were just left hanging in limbo. I hope by the next novel she's purchased a gun or had training in judo of some kind because she's needing it. Must say though, tugboat Capt. Seychelle Sullivan (father named the three children after islands) knows her boats. I think I may have learned a little about them myself which is not a bad thing. There were some words I knew such as fenders, starboard side (left or right side, not sure) and dinghys (little boats, right?) but some I never knew such as gunwhale, bulwark and transom. I think a more polished writer (or editor) would have had a short description of the term so that readers (who don't know boats well) could follow along better. On Kindle, it would have been easy (time consuming) but easy to get the definition. Like I said, the ending was kind of messy, not quite sure why the bad guys did what they did. And they were so, so obvious from early on. The ending just didn't seem clear enough. But this is Kling's first novel. Unfortunately, I'm not in any hurry to run out and get number two, but certainly wouldn't avoid it either should it come up on Kindle and was free. I did like her writing style but apparently she had great mentors, James W. Hall and Les Standiford. A clear storyline to the end was what was missing for me. The bonus for me though was that it was placed in Florida, on/around the water. I just love that stuff, bad storyline and all.
What do You think about Surface Tension (2012)?
#1 in the Seychelle Sullivan series. The debut novel in a series about a tugboat captain, who with her two brothers own the boat. The brief series lasted for four entries over 5 years.Seychelle Sullivan uses her tug to keep a yacht from foundering on the beach. She finds a dead woman aboard and no sign of the captain, her ex-boyfriend. The yacht's owner is a mystery, the lawyer is lowballing the salvage fee, her brother wants to sell the tug so he can get his third, a runaway she had befriended is killed, her house is ransacked. Who wants what?
—Ed
This exciting story starts with a Mayday call, and the action never lets up. Seychelle Sullivan owns and operates a salvage boat she inherited from her father. She lives in a bungalow on Fort Lauderdale's New River, and works on Florida's Intracoastal Waterway. When Seychelle hears a Mayday over the radio, she races to beat her competitors to rescue the multimillion-dollar yacht Top Ten, captained by her ex-lover Neal. Seychelle finds a dead body on the boat, no sign of Neal. Florida police prefer to pin the murder on Seychelle rather than figure out what really happened. Thugs from the criminal underworld assume she is hiding Neal, and try to intimidate her into revealing Neal's location. Seychelle's brother, co-owner of the boat, wants her to sell it to redeem his debts, so he sabotages her business. Seychelle is warned by many to stop investigating the murder, and her friends are endangered. She must avoid the police, who want to arrest her, as well as the criminals who want to kill her, to solve the mystery. Seychelle is a likable protagonist with a refreshingly different occupation for an amateur sleuth.
—Susan
I liked the protagonist and the story, but it got too graphic at the end. Is it possible to read a suspense book these days without child porn? Disgusting. I might check out the next book in the series though, since I do like Seychelle.
—Rebecca Dougherty
