Description /Buy link takes you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
The Sea Detective is a series of suspense mystery novels written by Mark Douglas-Home. The books tell the story of an Oceanographer in Edinburgh who solves crimes.
Get notified when Mark Douglas-Home releases a new book at BookNotification.com.
Order of Sea Detective Series
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Sea Detective | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea | 2013 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | The Malice of Waves | 2014 | Description / Buy | |
| 4 | The Driftwood Girls | 2020 | Description / Buy |
Readers are first introduced to Cal McGill, the protagonist, in The Sea Detective, the first novel in the Sea Detective series.
In The Sea Detective, two severed feet belonging to the same body wash up on two different Islands.
Cal McGill is called upon to unravel the case because his abilities as an oceanographer make him the most qualified person to discover the origins of the feet.
McGill is a Ph.D. student studying sea currents at the start of the series. The hero’s obsession with the sea was sparked when he was really young.
McGill’s maternal grandfather was working on a local shipping boat in World War II when he died.
His body was lost at sea. Even as a child, McGill couldn’t help but wonder where in the sea or on land his grandfather’s body might have been deposited.
And because his mother wouldn’t talk about her past, McGill always imagined setting out to sea by himself to look for his grandfather.
That attitude pushed Cal McGill to pursue oceanography, with the hero eventually developing cutting edge methods of tracking the movements of objects in the water.
The first mystery in the sea detective series finds McGill’s life already mired in action and adventure. The protagonist has a business called Flotsam and Jetsam Investigations that uses McGill’s knowledge of the ocean’s tides to scrutinize the strange items that frequently wash up on the beach.
Sometimes, the hero finds his own mysteries by sifting through the many oddities that he encounters whenever he goes strolling along the beach.
Other times, people will come knocking on McGill’s door, asking the oceanographer to use his skills to resolve those mysteries that plague them.
It isn’t until the hero is arrested for his environmental activism that McGill’s stint as an amateur sleuth who tackles actual criminal cases begins.
McGill is introduced to Ryan, a loathsome inspector who can’t help but bully everyone he meets.
Helen, Ryan’s underling, proves to be the more rational of the two. It is Helen who first takes note of McGill’s knowledge of the Ocean Tides.
Helen draws McGill into the case of the severed feet, giving the protagonist his first taste of real investigative work.
Over the course of the Sea Detective series, the hero encounters many more mysteries. Sometimes McGill operates alone. Other times, the Oceanographer is accompanied by Helen.
For the most part, these novels are typical of the mystery-suspense genre. Each new installment in the series features a new mystery that McGill and Helen must tackle.
McGill has a big heart. When he sees suffering and injustice, he cannot help but interfere and that keeps pushing him into situations he would be better off avoiding.
Best The Sea Detective Books
These novels have been praised for being tightly written and well plotted, with some of the best books in the series including:
The Sea Detective: Cal McGill is an oceanographer who can use his knowledge of the ocean currents to track the movements of objects.
The skill makes him perfectly suited to solve the mystery of two severed feet which belong to the same body but just so happen to wash up on different islands.
McGill must retrace their movements if he is to unravel a web of violence and lies.
The Malice of Waves: Max Wheeler was 14 when he disappeared from a remote Island. The police did what they could but they never found him.
Five years later, Max’s family has come to Cal McGill. They want him to find Max’s remains. But as a violent storm approaches, McGill doesn’t yet know that his investigation will soon bring a killer out of hiding.
Other Book Series You May Like
You may also like the “DI Beatrice Stubbs” Series by J.J. Marsh. Beatrice Stubbs is an aging, awkward, complicated, female detective with a troubled psychiatric history.
Even though she is formally stationed in London, work keeps dragging Stubbs to new cities and countries around the world from where she must put her keen intellect to the task of solving unusual cases.
Another great series is the “Adam Lapid Mysteries” Series by Jonathan Dunsky. Adam Lapid is a former Nazi Hunter working as a private detective in Israel in the late 1940s. Lapid tackles cases of a sensitive nature, many of them inspired by the tense social, economic, and political situation in Israel.
What Is The Next Book in The Sea Detective Series?
There doesn't seem to be an upcoming book in The Sea Detective Series. The newest book is The Driftwood Girls and was released on January, 9th 2020.