Louisiana Blue: A Tiller Galloway Thriller

Deep-water diver Tiller Galloway (last seen in Bahamas Blue ) returns in a slow-moving but ultimately satisfying thriller centered around oil rigs off the Louisiana coast. Tiller and his friend Shad Aydlett, running from debts and hired gunman they attracted on their last job, hook up with Deep Tech, a small company hired by Coastal Oil Corp. to perform underwater work on its pipelines. A copter crash that may or not be an accident offers early warning that there is something crooked about Deep Tech; but revelations and suspicions are kept to a minimum until the very end, when Deep Tech's relation to Coastal becomes all too apparent and Tiller's life is on the line. Tiller is a compelling protagonist, an often unlikable and self-centered drifter who is the perfect denizen of the undersea world: tough, stubborn, solitary, out of place on land. But the biggest thrills in this well-written and subtly plotted novel come from the way Poyer brings alive the dangerous, claustrophobia-inducing world of deep-sea diving. (Apr.)