Books I've read this week - Man Overboard

I was sent a copy of Man Overboard, written by Sandy Mason, to review. The book was written as if the main character, Johnny Donohue, was telling the story. (It reminded me of some of those TV shows where the cop or investigator talks to the audience during the show.) Donohue and a buddy, ex-cop Lonny Turner are delivering a boat when they find an unattended sailboat. It belongs to a marina owner and he's nowhere to be found. The police investigation finds out he'd been skimming money from his business and also, suspected drug-running boats had been tied up at his marina. Did the man just skip town or is he involved with the drug-runners? Johnny is a friend of the family and tries to find out what happened along with the help of his new girlfriend, Maria deFlores, who's a newspaper reporter, and his friend Lonny. The book is full of boat descriptions and sailing references. Not knowing one boat from another, it was hard to understand part of the time. If you like a mystery and sailing, you may like this book.

I found the book to be somewhat repetitive. And I have no idea why, when referring to Florida, he needed to say "that there seemed to be a lot of people wandering around the streets or working in the stores with IQ's well below the national norm." (p. 116) That should win some brownie points with Floridian readers! The author also seemed to think that since he was writing a book aimed at a mainly male audience, he needed to throw in references to the Korean War. (Chapter 30) In my opinion, this whole chapter and Johnny's trip back home wasn't necessary to the story. He also kept telling what Johnny was wearing and what they were eating ........ who cares? On page 161, "The weather now became a steady drizzle, so I ditched the sport coat and put on a sailing jacket. I still looked stunning." HUH? I hope he was trying to be funny. What kind of guy calls himself 'stunning'? This just wasn't really my kind of book. Sorry, Mr. Mason.

I believe this book was self-published as there was no publisher or copyright date listed. For more information on the author, you can go here.