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Seychelle Grows Up
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Without Travis McGee around anymore, who's taking up the slack and keeping track of South Florida's bad guys? Seychelle Sullivan, novelist Christine Kling's heroine, could have been McGee's dream girl. She's a tugboat captain on Ft. Lauderdale's New River, and she knows more about boats than any of the guys.

What John D. MacDonald and Kling have in common, beyond their boating heroes and heroines, is a sensitivity to environmental and social issues in South Florida. While Travis McGee and Seychelle Sullivan deal with the lowliest criminals and inhabit some of the seediest locales, they are both sincere, real people who love South Florida. They are tough and sentimental at the same time, which makes them all the more human and makes us love reading about them.

Kling's fourth Seychelle Sullivan novel, Wreckers' Key, is due to be released February 27. It's a remarkable fourth book, and has all the qualities of literary fiction. In what almost seems like a coming-of-age story (even though Seychelle is well beyond her formative years!), Seychelle becomes disillusioned with the marine industry—the towing and salvage industry in particular.

Seychelle works in her father's business, carrying his legacy with her as she steams up and down the New River on the tug Gorda, towing megayachts and saving stranded sailors. She's attached to the boat and to the business, but when a close friend of hers, a young captain on a bright and shiny yacht, runs hard aground in the Florida Keys and then dies under suspicious circumstances, she begins to see the darker side of towing and salvage. It's a business that, to some people, is akin to modern-day piracy.

Nestor Frias, Seychelle's friend, had suspected that the vessel had run aground due to a glitch in its fancy new electronic navigation system. Seychelle, who prefers to navigate with a paper chart and a pair of dividers, is skeptical of his claims, but she promises to help his pregnant widow find out what happened. They both originally suspect the yacht's owner of killing Nestor in order to cover up financial difficulties, but the truth they learn is much darker.

While all this is going on, Seychelle's relationship with her rock-solid lover B.J. is on shaky ground, as B.J. continues to spend more and more time with Seychelle's best friend. There is a sense of reality in their relationship that is new and tragic, and that wasn't as strong in Kling's previous books. Seychelle, a woman who rarely spends time thinking about her feelings, is forced to deal with the suspicions and jealousy that she suddenly has for her best friend and her lover.

As she learns more about the dark nature of some of the players in the towing and salvage business, Seychelle finds herself thinking the unthinkable—about selling her boat and getting out of the marine industry. Shark-like brokers catch wind of this, and start hounding her to make a decision. All the while, friends of hers keep winding up dead. To find out more, you'll have to read the book!

It's one crazy tugboat ride.

Come join Bluewater Books & Charts and Christine Kling at the Downtowner Saloon on Fort Lauderdale's New River for the release of Wreckers' Key!

It will be held on Tuesday, Feb 27, at 7:00 PM.

Call 954-763-6533 for more details!