The Girl Beneath the Sea

Mayne’s novel kicks off with a “splash”, setting the stage within the vulnerable position of being afloat, not knowing exactly what’s going on, and encountering a dead body. Written in first person, we follow Sloan, a single mother, who is thrown into the middle of being a witness to murder. The novel follows her, her daughter, and the many characters, including the killer(s) and law enforcement as she tries to uncover the truth and navigate impending threats.

Thrillers like The Girl Beneath the Sea are always a welcome and popular addition to most readers’ shelves, as they provide just the right amount of thrill and comfort to keep us engorged within someone else’s world. The problem with Mayne’s effort is that where he excels at coloring many underwater scenes that are nearly breathtaking, there just isn’t enough humanity to get our claws into. Sloan, despite being our narrator, does not reveal enough about her to give us a decent backstory. Her behavior is atypical of a professional diver, and it seems as though little to no effort was put into trying to understand the art of diving to give one of the central themes of the novel a realistic pitch.

Finally, and perhaps one of the largest detractors of the novel, is that the protagonist doesn’t feel like a woman; although this is certainly a subjective observation, her movements, statements, actions and characteristics do not feel believable given who she is supposed to be, and this, along with insufficient meat to bite into, makes it difficult to stay immersed.