I was SO excited to get an ARC of book 2 in the Underwater Investigation Unit series and it did not disappoint!

This sequel is an action-packed detective novel that had me on the edge of my seat as the team faced off with gators, a potential serial killer and of course other law enforcement agencies in Southern Florida. This time around Sloan and George have added a third member to their team to balance out the tough old cop/young rule-breaking newbie dynamic and I'm here for it.

Do I wish I was reading this on a beach somewhere? Yes! This has thriller beach-read written all over it. Since I won't be packing for a beach trip any time soon (and definitely not to Florida - thanks Covid), I was glad for the escapism that this book allowed me from the safety of my own living room.

I am amazed at this incredibly well thought out thriller. This is unlike any of the other thrillers I had read this year. This story is told from the perspective of a strong female detective who works for the newly established Underwater Investigation Unit in Florida.

As I began reading it I thought, this is exactly the kind of book my dad would have loved. It grips you from the beginning and has you hooked throughout. The pace of this book was great, the story, to me, was so believable that I could easily believe that it was written by someone with first hand experience at diving and the inner workings of a police investigation.

This book read like a true crime detective investigation. I loved the strong female lead, Sloan. She was smart, gutsy and down to earth.
I would not recommend this book to people who are a bit sensitive to serial killers and some of the grimy details of that kind of investigation, I found that I would avoid reading this too late at night, because those things creep me out, I am a bit of a baby with these things, in saying that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book because it was so well written. This is my first Andrew Mayne book, but definitely will not be my last.

Spent the weekend reading Andrew Mayne's Black Coral — thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC! I'm very into thrillers and this one did not disappoint. 

Black Coral tells the story of Sloane McPherson, an underwater investigator/police officer in South Florida whose team partners with local police to provide expert diving assistance. Her team is called to the scene of a vehicle that's ended up in an alligator-infested pond, and Sloane is tasked with recovering the body that was still in the car. While diving, she also discovers a van that's clearly been in the pond for years. What they find in the van helps Sloane and her team discover connections to cold cases in the area, eventually leading them to a still-active serial killer. 

This is a well-written page turner and part of a series about the Underwater Investigation Unit — I hadn't read the first book and you can definitely read Black Coral as a standalone, although now I'm interested in going back to read the first one in the series. After reading so many thrillers, some of them start to feel the same — this is fresh and definitely a lot darker than what I'm used to reading, but it's a solid 4/5 stars.

NetGalley #BlackCoral
This is the first e to me by Andrew Mayne but it's so good and spectacular, the idea of the novel is new and well written, i enjoyed the novel so much.
The cover is breathtaking, i adore everything that related to water.

Ebook/Mystery: A first person narrative holds my interest. This book has not been published yet, so no spoilers here.

In this novel, you hear the mind of Sloan McPherson. While she is much wittier than Jack Reacher, Alex Delaware, or Sookie Stackhouse, she is not as funny as Izzy Spellman, Abby Normal, or Stephanie Plum, but she does have her moments. I read this book in just a few days. I requested this from NetGalley because I liked the plot mentioned on the back of the book. A van found in water containing four teenagers missing since the 80s. I was expecting more of a procedural drama since the evidence was encased in a tomb. There was also a side story or two that just seemed like filer. The ending was too quick for me with the epilogue not tying up the loose ends like I was hoping.

What I did like was Sloan. She is a smart single mom. She has a pirate dad and baby-daddy named Run (she should have took the warning there) to help her out with Jacque, her 12 year-old. I think the author did a good job of writing as a woman and I do recommend this book.

So glad to have the opportunity to read this second installment so soon after reading the first, and Mayne doesn't disappoint. Sloan McPherson possesses unique skills as a member of a Florida police unit in that she is an intrepid diver, who sometimes goes rogue and takes chances that jeopardize an investigation. While working another case in the murky waters of an alligator's playground known as Pond 35, she discovers a submerged van that answers a 30 year old riddle and opens a heartbreaking cold case. And we're off and running. A quality of Mayne's work is his intense curiosity about a subject which can lead to information buried in one of his narratives. Here, in addition to a crackling good mystery or two, we learn a lot about the behavior of alligators. Sinice Mayne is so prolific, I hope we don't have to wait long before installment #3.

4
Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer for this exciting read in exchange for a honest review.

This is the second book I had read by the author and the first is not of the UIU. The first one being ‘The Naturalist’, I may have expected a lot more subject matter or a in depth view of the investigation.

Clearly, this is a fast paced novel and ‘unputdownable’. But is it believable?

Our protagonist, Sloan, discovers a van with 4 teenage carcasses in a remote lake during a rescue operation. She calls foul play and looks for signs of a fifth person and starts investigating. Soon she gets a tip-off about possible links to a serial killing. Things escalate and his killings are discovered to be in par with the likes of Jeffery Dahmer.

So talking about the characters, It totally felt like a tight knit family in there and love to see developments in the upcoming novels. Sloan is our typical female character who is skilled technically and physically. I love her portrayal and the love for her family in every small incident. She constantly thinks about her daughter, What would she have done? How would she grow up? Is she capable to survive insuch a world where these monsters lurk? And that’s totally relatable. Also, her stunts are so exciting!

About the killer himself, I love hate the conclusion. Talking about it would be revealing too much but it was sort of a letdown. Why to do those actions if you are truly sorry? Why go such lengths to hide yourself? And the sheer amount of deaths? Staggering but not believable.

I felt the author toned down a bit compared to The Naturalist and Sloan being a female lead may have been one of the reasons. But I love the process of detangling the problem and discovery of the outrageous, just like The Naturalist.

This book in no way makes me stop reading other books by Andrew Mayne. But I better go for The Naturalist series for a better thrill.

this is the first Andrew Mayne book I've read. The book starts out as the UIU (Underwater Investigative Unit) is diving for a sunken car. That leads to another unsolved case from 30 years ago. Sloane McPherson is the lead diver in an alligator-infested pond. She's a sassy risk-taking investigator who happens to have been raised by a salvage-diver father. This is the second in a series but i found it could be a stand alone as there are enough references to the first case to bring readers up to speed. I really loved the beginning of the book and the promise of a good underwater mystery. I liked Sloan as a character and the Florida setting. i found her personal life less satisfying as she has a 12-year old daughter Jackie with an unseen "boyfriend" named Run. And that's all we know about him. They don't live together and seem to have different ideas how to raise their daughter. As the book went on it turned into a search for a serial killer. The ending was way too easy. I liked Mayne style of writing and may read a future book by him. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

This is the second book in this series. I read the first one and was iffy but when I had a chance to review this book, I took a chance and I loved it.

While Sloan is called in to do a dive in a lake she finds a van under the water. When the van is retrieved, 4 bodies are found inside. The bodies are identified as 4 teenagers who disappeared 30 years ago. As Sloan and her UIU team investigate, it appears the bodies are linked to a number of missing persons cases over the years. The investigation is a page turner and the ending is satisfying.

What i really enjoyed is the aspects of diving and her encounters with all the life underwater. I've learned more about Alligators and Crocs then i ever knew. Did you know the sex of a baby alligator is determined by the temperature of the water? I love learning facts like this!

I'll be waiting for book #3

tl;dr: The second book in the Underwater Investigation Unit series completely blows the first book out of the water (forgive me). More grounded cases make this book far easier to buy into and the introduction of a new character helps add some more personality to the book. There are regular twists and turns throughout the novel and the weaving together of two cases helps keep the book interesting throughout. I blew through this in one day and I now rank it among my favourite thrillers.

Summary: Sloan McPherson, lead diver/investigator for the new Underwater Investigation Unit, is called in to help recover a body from a car that flew off of a bridge. After recovering the body, Sloan finds a van under the water and insists that it's brought up, something's not right about it. With the case of the van rapidly growing larger than UIU could have imagined, they're also trying to catch a group of thieves who steal expensive equipment from yachts in the area.

Thoughts: I loved this book. I wish that the first book had been more like this one. The main case involving the van is fascinating and regularly takes unexpected twists and turns, with even a few red herrings thrown into the mix. The side-case of the yacht thieves adds some nice variety into the novel and helps increase the suspense as the chapters regarding this case often occur right after a development in the other one. Both cases were very believable, certainly more so than the one in the first novel, so it was really easy to get invested in both of them.

The new character introduced, Hughes, is a former navy diver and compliments Sloan and George's characters well. He adds a nice new dynamic to the group and while his character isn't super-fleshed out, there's enough backstory to get a good picture of who he is.

There's less involvement of Sloan's family in this one, though her relationship with her daughter does get a good amount of focus and development. The only thing I really took issue with was that there wasn't really any development in her relationship with her daughter's father, it doesn't matter too much and I'm sure a lot of people won't care, but Sloan's family is an important part of her character and I would have liked to have seen more in that regard.

All in all, this is an incredibly compelling thriller that I'd certainly recommend to fans of the genre, I would say you could probably skip the first one if you wanted to but it is worth reading (and this book doesn't come out for a while anyway).

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced review copy of the book.

4 1/2 stars. Very well done. Good development of characters and subject matter.I like the writers style, and will look forward to his next book.

Thoroughly enjoying this series the characters are interesting and interact well with each other. The story was fast paced,full of twists,building to an exciting conclusion.

A great follow-up to Book 1 (which I did read)! I was hooked from the beginning and since I do enjoy serial killer mysteries, this was right up my alley. As a Florida native and current resident, I love to read books that take place in my home state. I really like the whole idea of the underwater Investigative unit and look forward to seeing how this department grows and it’s relationship with other law enforcement agencies.

Looking forward to Book 3!

Thank you #netgalley and #thomasandmercer for the eARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for my advance reading copy of Black Coral.

I enjoyed this one a lot, and intend going back to read the first one. I'm a big fan of maritime and underwater intrigue, especially when it relates to treasure hunting! This wasn't your average treasure though, what Sloan, along with Hughes and Solar, was hunting, was a seriously dodgy killer. A killer who managed to evade capture for rather a long time. Sloan McPherson is part of the U.I.U, and is a gutsy, ballsy chick, albeit a bit reckless. I loved the description of the murky water, the gators, the van and Big Bill in his lair. The atmosphere created is creepy and ominous.

There was a lot of action, and I like Sloan, I really do, I also like Hughes. I can see this unit growing in strength and reputation, and being quite a force to reckon with, despite being seen as the underdog in many ways. The pace moved along nicely and I found myself pondering the outcome on a number of occasions.

The one thing I did not like was the graphic mention about the python killing. I don't understand why anyone adds something like that to a book - it doesn't lend itself to the story in any way and it can be quite off-putting for a number of readers, there are a few people out there who feel that way. In any case, I glossed over it completely.

Aside from that, this was a good read and worth picking up if you feel like a bit of adventure. I give it 3.5 stars.

Of all the thrillers I have read, I think this one hooked me the fastest, mostly due to the fact that it starts off with Sloan diving into a crime scene (quite literally). This book is like any other great thriller that you have read but add the spookiness of scuba diving and the eeriness of being underwater. Personally, I am a huge fan of the aquatics and thought it was a cool change in pace from your usual mystery.

The story follows the UIU, Underwater Investigation Unit, as they use their unique skills to solve crime. These are the kinds of cops you like to read about; dedicated to the job and passionate about their ways of doing it. Sloan might have some interesting ways, but is a total badass!

While I have not read Mayne’s first book in the series, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a good thriller. His style of writing made it a fun read and gave the reader a front seat to the characters thoughts. I definitely laughed a few times in between my fits of anxiety. I could not finish this book faster! It gave me “Long Bright River” and “The Chestnut Man” vibes. My next book is definitely going to be Mayne’s The Girl Beneath The Sea (the first book in the Underwater Investigation Unit series).

Thank you to Netgally for the copy, I definitely enjoyed it

Sloan MacPherson, a diver in the Underwater Investigation Unit, finds a van in Pond 65 while helping with a recovery of a body from a recent accident. The van is a 30 year old cold case that involved the disappearance of four teenagers after a rock concert. Investigation into the case appears to have reawakened a serial killer. Will Sloan and her team be able to track the killer without becoming a victim herself??? This is an exciting read!
This is the second book in the series and I look forward to reading more!!

This is the second book in the underwater investigation Unit. I did not read the first one, but it was easy to pick up what was going on.
Sloan McPherson is a diver who, while helping rescue the body from a recent crash, finds a van with the bodies of four teenagers which went missing.
I did enjoy the writing and the unraveling of the mystery of the teenagers.
There was another thread about a serial killer which I did not enjoy. The unit did a great job solving everything. It was good, I usually do not care of serial killer stories
Thank you, Net Galley, for an advance copy for an honest review.

I've read several of Andrew Mayne's books so I jumped at the chance to read the new series. And although it's quite similar to the Jessica Blackwood books, I like this series so far. Actually, I like this book a bit more than I liked the first. I'm not sure why, exactly; I think the maybe the crime(s) in this one were more compelling.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer for providing this copy for review.

Not your typical thriller. Edge of your seat underwater scenes that you don’t normally associate with crime novels. Twists and turns throughout the book made it hard to put down. The UIU is made up of characters you can’t help but root for. Loved this book.

Thank you, Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC. I did not read the first book in the series, but that didn't detract from this book. It started out so good. What happened to the four teenagers? For me, the book was better when it focused on the teenagers, but then it just became a serial killer book. The ending was good, though. It wasn't a bad book, just wasn't great for me.