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Man Overboard: A Johnny Donohue Adventure Reviewed by Norm Goldman of Bookpleasures.com
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Norm Goldman


Reviewer & Author Interviewer, Norm Goldman. Norm is the Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com.

He has been reviewing books for the past twenty years after retiring from the legal profession.

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By Norm Goldman
Published on June 11, 2009
 

Author: Sandy Mason
Publisher: Booksurge
ISBN:978-1-4392-3384-9

A promising author



Author: Sandy Mason
Publisher: Booksurge
ISBN:978-1-4392-3384-9

Click Here To Purchase Man Overboard: A Johnny Donohue Adventure (Johnny Donohue Adventures)

There is something alluring in reading a novel where you are very familiar with the setting, and this is how I felt when a copy of Sandy Mason’s Man Overboard: A Johnny Donohue Adventure appeared one day in my mail- box.

The backdrop of this quirky mystery is the St. Petersburg-Bradenton area on the west coast of Florida, and it is here where we first meet our protagonist Johnny Donohue who enjoys comparing himself to Detective Mike Hammer but claims he is better looking. Remember Mike Hammer? He was the principal character in Micky Spillane’s 1947 novel, I, The Jury that was later made into a film in the early 1950s. There were also several television series based on the same character.

Donahue, along with his business partner Ed Dowd, developed a marina management software package that they sell to marina owners. Donahue is also quite a sailboat aficionado and as our story unfolds, he along with his good friend, Lonnie Turner, who is an ex-cop, and the latter’s girlfriend, Michelle Norris are piloting a thirty-eight foot Catalina sailboat named Epithelia and owned by a dermatologist, Dr. Sam Feldman. Apparently, Feldman purchased the boat in Sarasota and hired Turner and Donohue to deliver it to their marina in Bradenton.

A few minutes away from their point of departure, the three- person crew spot a thirty-two foot Bennetau named MaMaReen floundering in the wind. Donohue immediately recognizes the boat as belonging to one of his software clients, sixty-six year old Tom McNeil. When they board the boat, however, there was no sign of McNeil or even if any struggle had taken place. What happened to McNeil? Did he fall overboard without a life jacket and drowned? Was he kidnapped? Was he mixed up in some criminal activities?

Within a day, Lieutenant Brandon Greene from the St. Pete Coast Guard Station and a veteran of many rescues and drownings enters the scene and meets with McNeil’s widow Maureen, her son Bobby along with Donohue and Turner at McNeil’s marina in St. Petersburg. All seem to be quite perplexed as to the disappearance of McNeil. One thing that Donohue is pretty sure about is that his former client was moving a lot of cash out of his business. His accounts showed too little money for the amount of traffic that went through his marina. Perhaps, McNeil was evading taxes and as his son Bobby later exclaims, “I can’t help think that all this cash has something to do with my father’s disappearance. I can’t believe he drowned. I just can’t believe it!” Eventually, we discover that McNeil stashed some of the cash in the attic of his house, on the MaMaReen as well in a safety deposit box in the Bahamas branch of Credit Suisse.

Another wrinkle is thrown into the mystery when it is affirmed that McNeil hired his nephew Conner and subsequently fired him because he was caught red-handed stealing cash from the till. This in itself is not exactly helpful in solving the mystery, but we also learn that Conner was too friendly with some Mexican drug dealers. Does this have something to do with McNeil’s disappearance?  

And not to leave out some romance in the yarn, Donohue falls in love with a St. Pete Times staff reporter, Maria deFlores who becomes very much involved in finding out what really happened to McNeil as this certainly would make a great story and perhaps win her some awards.  

Mason is a good storyteller, however regrettably the novel felt random at times. The relationship between deflores and Donohue remains underdeveloped. Donohue’s ruminations concerning his family are neither here nor there and take up too much space. Furthermore, one of the essential ingredients of a good mystery is conflict or tension that should be directly or indirectly included on practically every page such as issues, irritations, and doubts that worry your characters and make readers tense. Unfortunately, this to a large extent was absent. Nonetheless, Mason is a promising author and I do hope to hear more from him in the future.      

 Click Here To Purchase Man Overboard: A Johnny Donohue Adventure (Johnny Donohue Adventures)