Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett

From the Publisher

      Wiki Coffin plays many parts on the U.S. Exploring Expedition---sailor, linguist, navigator, and, as half-Maori, cultural go-between. But then the brig Swallow reaches the coast of Patagonia, an area infamous for its rough gauchos and revolutionary spirit, and he must take on his other role, that of agent of U.S. law and order.

      A New England whaler shows up, desperate to find the devious trader who has cheated him of a thousand dollars and a schooner. Wiki is assigned to find the missing ship, only to follow a trail of clues to a dead body, half-buried in a hill of salt, its skull picked clean by vultures. The adventure unravels in the impoverished village of El Carmen de Patagones, where the threat of French invasion is imminent, and business is at a standstill under the orders of General de Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Aires.

      Wiki must risk both life and reputation in pursuit of a vicious and determined killer who has set his sights on another target: the U.S. Exploring Expedition itself.

Publishers Weekly

New Zealand historian Druett's uneven fourth Wiki Coffin whodunit (after 2006's Run Afoul) finds half-Maori navigator and "linguister" Wiki investigating theft and murder in Patagonia. It's January 1839, and Wiki, as sheriff's representative aboard the U.S. Exploring Expedition ship Swallow, agrees to help outraged whaler Captain Stackpole, who claims to have been roundly cheated. Trader Caleb Adams took Stackpole's money and vanished, along with the schooner Stackpole was buying. When Wiki goes looking for Adams, he finds only his corpse. The bill of sale has been stolen from Adams's store and a clerk murdered as well. Gauchos, Indians, revolutionaries and adventurers flock across the beautifully rendered landscape. Druett's meticulous research shows in the vivid characters (including historical figures), but irrelevant passages of lush detail smother the plot, letting it resurface only in a late and hurried blurt of exposition. A better balance between detail and story would have made for smoother sailing. (Dec.)

David Doerrer - Library Journal

In the fourth series title, jack-of-all-trades Wiki Coffin plays sheriff when a New England whaler's ship vanishes and a dead body surfaces in the Rio Negro. Druett lives in New Zealand.

Kirkus Reviews

The pursuit of a daring thief takes Wiki Coffin through a flock of fascinating historical footnotes, in the latest from Druett (Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World, 2007, etc.). Off the coast of Patagonia in early 1839, the U.S. brig Swallow barely escapes a fracas with the whaling ship Trojan after the latter misinterprets a friendly message and fires a shot. After a rapprochement is reached, the whaler's frazzled captain, Wilkes, tells the sad story of being scammed by Caleb Adams, a trader who made off with both his schooner and the lion's share of his money. Captain Rochester of the Swallow recommends his multitalented linguist Wiki Coffin to track Adams down, and the Maori sleuth is off on his fourth adventure. Well-served by his knowledge of the South-American gauchos and their customs, Wiki methodically follows Adams's trail. He meets a legion of quirky characters, both among the natives and in the ranks of those he's been chosen to lead, including his counterparts under Wilkes's command, pompous naturalist Titian Peale and rugged philologist Horatio Hale. The discovery of a storekeeper's corpse, only days dead, adds murder to the list of Adams's alleged crimes and ramps up the tension. On the way to a solution, Wiki must deal with cocky Samoan seamen, a near-mutiny over sauerkraut and, yet again, his bull-in-a-china-shop dad. Fascinating tidbits come left and right, and Druett's prose gains vigor with every volume. Agent: Laura Langlie/Laura Langlie Literary Agency

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