Blind Waves

What’s not to like about an SF mystery that:

  • has a title drawn from Shakespeare
  • where the author admits in an afterword that in writing the relationship between the hero and heroine he had in mind the relationship between Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey
  • has a witty, quick-witted, competent, mature heroine who can recite Twelfth Night in full, while seasick and in danger. (Patricia, addressing a bomb found in her submersible: “How do I
    detonate thee? Let me count the ways. I detonate thee by the depth to
    which you descend, by lapse of time, by the distant caress of a digital
    signal, and by the passion of a tamper switch.”)
  • has a witty, quick-witted, competent, mature hero who can appreciate Twelfth Night recited in full, also while seasick and in danger, and is named Thomas Beckett besides
  • has a brilliant courtship scene in which the pair exchange confidences and kisses during a succession of dives and surfacings under the sea-barriers around a floating city – while escaping (as Peter Wimsey would say) four pub-uglies with guns
  • is set on, and under-sea, following the eruption of a large Antarctic volcanic field and the inundation of the world’s coastline.

The book’s title is Blind Waves, and the author is Steven Gould.