SURFACE TENSION by Christine Kling is a thriller, a first novel featuring a young woman heroine who is feisty, independent, yet vulnerable. The oddly named Seychelle (her eccentric parents named all their children after islands) is a tugboat captain, and she runs her towing and salvage business aboard the 46-foot custom aluminum tug Gorda on the New River in Fort Lauderdale. Answering an offshore MAYDAY call from the Top Ten, a 90-foot Broward mega-yacht, she discovers the luxury vessel adrift at sea with only a dead girl aboard. There is no sign of the infamous skipper, Neal Garrett, Seychelle’s former lover. After towing the vessel into Port Everglades and attempting to file a salvage claim against the yacht’s corporate owners, Seychelle finds herself a major suspect in what the police believe to be a double murder. Diving, navigation, swamps and Florida’s artificial reefs combine to bring about a bloody showdown beneath the surface of the sea where Seychelle discover’s Neal’s secret.

For a taste of the novel, read the opening 20 pages here on our website.

Hardcover publication: Spring 2002
(First of a two-book contract, featuring the same character.)