Diving Into Mystery

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Diving at Jacques Cousteau Marine Park

When I decided to plunge into mystery writing, I knew what the “who, what, and where” of my novels would be. I’ve been a scuba diver for twenty-five years and have been sailing in the British Virgin Islands for almost as long. So my character, police diver and underwater investigator Hannah Sampson, was a natural.  I’ve published four books in my underwater investigation series, Swimming With The Dead, Dark Water Dive, Dangerous Depths, and Under Pressure. How lucky can one be? I’m doing what I love and writing about it! And even better, the reviewers are calling the books “first rate thrillers, the underwater action top-notch.”

I’ve tried hard to keep the books authentic. I’ve dived the sites that my character, Hannah Sampson, dives when she sets out to solve heinous crimes, though I admit with relief that I have never encountered a dead body underwater. Like me, Hannah finds wrecks dark, claustrophobic places, where air tanks clanging off hulls serve to emphasize the fact that she is jailed by steel. She experiences the same fear that I do at depth, when nitrogen narcosis sends her to the edge of panic. I want the reader to feel what Hannah feels when she is caught in a wreck and out of air or swims right into the body of a murder victim.

I’m also awe struck by the underwater environment. It’s like being submerged in Wonderland, gliding under arches blanketed in color, my bubbles catching and sparkling like mercury in the rocks above my head; swimming along underwater walls covered in reef life, the sea floor thousands of feet below. I’ve followed turtles and Manta Rays, played with sea lions, touched Christmas Tree Worms, and encountered Hammerheads that completely ignored my presence.

I want to share this world with those who have not experienced it and also let people know that the environment is fragile. As a result my books all have environmental sub-themes, focusing on the damage to coral reefs worldwide, on the decimation of shark populations for a bowl of shark fin soup, on endangered sea turtles.

When I started these books, I knew a respectable amount about the ocean environment and the basics of diving. But I knew absolutely nothing about dive rescue and recovery, underwater investigation, or even some of the particulars about reef ecology or sea turtle preservation. I had a lot to learn. I got certified in dry suits on a snowy day in a Colorado lake, elevation 10,500 feet. I joined rescue and recovery divers for training both in the classroom and in water murky with sediment, where the diver swims blind. I learned about evidence retrieval and preservation from the experts. By the way, did you know that fingerprints, fibers, even blood can be recovered if the diver handles a weapon or body correctly underwater?

I’ve also accompanied a team of researchers in the Caribbean as they tagged turtles. I’ve spent hours in the dusty environmental library in the BVI and days at home buried in articles and research studies about the marine environment. Even that is fun, especially when it all gets turned into mystery.