One Fell Sloop

 One Fell Sloop (1990) by Susan Kenney

This is the third and last of a short academic mystery series which features Roz Howard, American literature professor, and her lover, Alan Stewart, Scottish artist cum botany expert. The series varies between Maine and the UK. This outing finds Roz & Alan "messing about in boats" (a la Wind in the Willows)--taking a little sailboat cruise along the Maine coast for some together time and perhaps a sorting out of their long-distance relationship. Their holiday is interrupted when they stop on a semi-deserted island, known for its rare flora and fauna (a real draw for Alan), and find a dead body. 

It winds up that the victim is the environmentally-minded owner of the island who had had a falling out with his family (who own a nearby island). It seems that one island can't be sold without the consent of all parties and Peter Onterdonck was not in favor of selling off such environmentally important property. But was the feud over the islands great enough to incite murder? Family rivalry may play a part but Roz and Alan discover motives that may be even darker than that. There's possible pirate treasure in the offing or maybe some drug-running. But can they convince the authorities that it's anything more than just an accident?

I do love me an academic-related mystery, but angst-ridden academics are not my thing. At least not right this moment. Roz spends the first three chapters talking about/around/obliquely referring to at times the flaming row she and Alan have had. She's spends oodles of time rehashing it in her brain. With me, shouting at her (in mine), just get on with the murder mystery already! I really don't care about her love-life. And I'm really not a fan of flashback fights, which is what we're getting here. You want to bring in the fight--fine. Then just start the story when they get on the boat and show us what happens in real (book) time. Stop with the flouncing back and forth between now and what happened in the last two-three days. 

And, honestly, as I kept reading, things just didn't get better. Roz spends more time worrying about what Alan has said and does that mean what she thinks it does or does he have his mind on the job (figuring out the mystery before them) than she does on the mystery. She's supposed to be our amateur detective protagonist, but she acts more like a school girl who's all worried about her crush.

The mystery is decent, but it's buried almost as deep as any pirate booty that might be lurking about. I had a really difficult job slogging through Roz and her inner dialogue to keep up with the main plot. ★★

First line: It had seemed like a good idea at the time, Roz Howard thought as she rolled over and carefully rearranged herself in the somewhat confined vee-berth of her Aunt Jessie True's old wooden sailboat.

Last line: It was a waterbed,.
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Deaths = One hit on head