Icewater Mansions - Hardcover

Allyn, Doug

3.86

83 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312118295 ISBN 13: 9780312118297

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1995

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Meet Michelle "Mitch" Mitchell, a woman who epitomizes the female protagonist of the nineties - and the real woman of the nineties as well. True, not every American woman, no matter how admirable, chooses to work underwater on the oil rigs of the Texas Gulf, but Mitch has been supporting her son by doing just that...
...until the death of her estranged father takes her back to her northern Michigan home on the shores of Lake Huron, where she first learned to brave the deep. She's come simply to sell the saloon old Shannon Mitchell owned and be on her way, but a combination of doubt about the way her father met his death and an unexpected feeling that she has come home keeps her there.
Huron Harbor, Michigan, is a remote community on the shores of the great lake. Its people are sharply individualized and always interesting, if not always pleasant, to know. Allyn takes us to that town in the dead of winter, and holds us in suspense as Mitch revitalizes the saloon, makes friends and unknown enemies, and gets closer to the ugly truth about Shannon's death. And as a breathtaking climax, we go with Mitch into the freezing depths of the lake itself, where she finds that her skill as a diver may protect her from nature's dangers, but there's still the human peril to reckon with.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Allyn (Motown Underground) plumbs the deep secrets of a small town on Michigan's upper peninsula in this action-packed tale of shipwreck salvages, murder and an intricate struggle between families. When her father dies, Michelle Mitchell leaves the Texas Gulf and her work as a deep-water welder for her father's cabin on the shore of Lake Huron and his seedy bar, the Crow's Nest. From Mitch's arrival up north, when she pitches a chair through the bar's front window, Allyn suggests that you might go home again, but the process can be bruising. Mitch discovers that her dad, a tough old codger who was not above an illegal salvage or two, died under suspicious circumstances. She learns that her son (who spends the length of the book at boarding school), whom she bore after being raped by wealthy local Alec Devereaux, was the object of mysterious, unsavory dealings between her father and the Devereaux family. Although the plot follows a wild course and Allyn barely gets below the surface of his characters, he brings the lake to life-especially in a suspenseful, chilling description of a dive that figures in the resolution.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Michelle " Mitch" Mitchell is a thirtysomething single mom who's been making a living as a deep-sea diver in the Gulf of Mexico. When her father, Shan, dies, she heads to northern Michigan to settle his affairs. The official version has Shan drunk, driving into a ditch, and drowning in a couple feet of water. But something doesn't ring true to Mitch, so she does a little snooping around and discovers that her father was a dealer in contraband from wrecks discovered in Lake Huron. She also discovers that dear old Dad was involved in a scam that would have resulted in her losing custody of her teenage son. Soon Mitch realizes that nothing about her life and her family is what it seems to be. The dual plot lines--salvage smuggling and grandchild bartering--never converge as one might expect, but both are satisfyingly resolved. This is a well-plotted novel featuring a tough, self-contained protagonist forced to reappraise every notion she ever held about her past and future. Wes Lukowsky

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