*Many thanks to the author for my review copy!*
About the author:
Casey is the author of the Duck Darley crime series. The first in the series, UNDER WATER, will be released by Kensington Books on November 28th, 2017. Book two – AGAINST NATURE – will come out eight months later on July 31st, 2018. And Book three – THE TOWER OF SONGS – is slated for mid-2019 release.
Casey is also a Canadian Olympic swimmer and the co-founder and co-CEO of Imagine Swimming, New York City’s largest learn-to-swim school. He has won three Emmy awards and one Peabody award for his work on NBC’s broadcasts of the Olympic Games.
About the book:
Duck Darley should have been a winner. Once a competitive swimmer destined for Olympic gold, he drank away his gilded youth and followed his fraudster father’s footsteps into prison. Barely scraping by as an unlicensed private investigator, Duck now chases down cheating spouses for the same Manhattan elite who once viewed him as equal, and drowns bitter memories with whatever fills his glass.
Duck’s lost glory days resurface when he’s tasked with finding the teenaged sister of a former teammate turned Olympic champion. Privileged Madeline McKay vanished over Labor Day weekend, leaving behind a too-perfect West Village apartment and a promising athletic career of her own. Duck thinks he’s hunting for a self-destructive runaway—until Madeline’s film student ex is savagely murdered, and the media spins her as the psycho who killed him.
As Duck searches for Madeline, he’s plunged back into the dark underbelly of Olympic swimming—a world rife with wild lies and terrible violence. And he soon learns that no matter how hard he tries to escape his past, demons still lurk beneath every surface . . .
My thoughts:
Under Water is the first book in a Casey Barrett’s Duck Darley series, and it’s definitely off to a good start!
Darley used to have promise as an Olympic swimmer, but for various reasons, he ended up going to prison instead. This lead to Darley working as a PI in Manhattan, where he exposes cheaters and the usual PI fodder. Until he is contacted by the mother of his old swim team mate.
Madeleine McKay is missing but Darley thinks she’s run away and that there’s nothing untoward about her disappearance. Until her ex is murdered, and she becomes the prime suspect.
From here, Under Water really picks up the pace. Darley gets into trouble on occasion, but all in his pursuit for the truth. At times violent and gritty, Under Water has an almost hard-boiled crime kind of feel to it. It’s noir-ish and quite old school but it’s quite pacy!
It’s been a while since I read a crime book like Under Water. There is a seedy undertone throughout the narrative, but it lends itself well to the investigative work Darley has to do. One for fans of James Ellroy maybe? It’s got that kind of vibe going for it at times. One worth adding to your list!
Recommended for sure!
