Book Review: Old Silver

Reviewed By: A. Rolfingsmeier

Old Silver     Amazon US PB Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB
Carl Brookins
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney # 3
Top Publications, 2005, 259 pages

As singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot sang about the Edmund Fitzgerald, “Lake Superior it’s said never gives up her dead ... ”, so too, does “Old Silver” chronicle the lasting thrall of the mystery of a ship that sank and the mysterious cargo that sank with her.

Off Devils Island in Lake Superior, almost a hundred years after the Amador sank, destroyed in a storm with all crew, a vacationing diver finds a brass boiler plate with the Amador name and family mark. Hundreds of miles away, an historical society archivist begins work on the recently-donated historical and corporate papers of that same family. The brass port is stolen, the archivist murdered, apartments are trashed. Coincidence?

Not as far as Mary Whitney and Michael Tanner can see. Seattle, Washington-based Whitney, associated with a philanthropic organization, and Tanner, a public relations specialist, enjoy using their historical curiosity and intellectual skills, with time and money to indulge themselves. Traveling from the Minnesota Historical Society to the waters of Lake Superior and the tony Chicago North Shore, Tanner and Whitney solve the mystery and the murders to prevent the release of the century-old family secrets.

If you enjoy sailing, you will enjoy the nautical details of diving and sailing. (This reader sailed right past them.) Historically-believable mysteries always interest, and this one is no exception. The book blurb rightly describes Tanner and Whitney as modern-day amateur sleuths in the genre of Nick and Nora Charles. As with the Charles, the reader experiences Tanner’s and Whitney’s search for the mystery’s solution as if the emotions and actions occurred at great remove. While this operates to block full involvement in the tale, the story itself is well-crafted.

A. Rolfingsmeier

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, A. Rolfingsmeier