Seychelle Sullivan

SURFACE TENSION is the first book in this four-book suspense series featuring Florida tug and salvage captain Seychelle Sullivan. Working as she does in a man's world, Seychelle has to work twice as hard just to compete. Some have even called her reckless. In her view, she's just doing her job, salvaging boats and people's lives.On a steamy Florida morning Seychelle is answering a Mayday call launched from the five-million-dollar Broward yacht called Top Ten. Racing her fiercest competitor for salvage rights, Seychelle has a personal stake in this rescue: Her former lover, Neal Garrett, is the yacht's hired skipper. But being the first to reach Top Ten leads to a bloody payday. A beautiful woman has been stabbed to death onboard. And Garrett is nowhere to be found. While the police treat her as the prime suspect, Seychelle begins to unravel a tangled plot centered on a strip club where all the girls are tens on top." Seychelle is connecting human predators with innocent victims, and a mystery on land with a mystery buried deep beneath the sea. Now, to find out what really happened to Neal Garrett, Seychelle must retrace his last steps, through two murders and a horrific crime wave, to a final confrontation with someone who may want to kill her . . . or be her salvation.About the authorChristine Kling is a sailor, writer, nomad. Her new Shipwreck Adventure thrillers, Circle of Bones, and Dragon's Triangle feature the adventures of a female sailor and a maritime archeologist. Christine lives aboard a 52-foot motorsailor with her family including Barney, the Yorkshire Terror and Ruby, the Wonder Dog.

Mourning Tide is the first Seychelle Sullivan novel in over a decade. In this sequel to Wreckers' Key, Seychelle hasn't taken to motherhood as well as she hoped. Five years earlier, when Catalina Frias died in childbirth under B.J.'s care, Seychelle decided to adopt her friend's orphaned child. She promised the baby boy she would stop leading a reckless life, stop getting involved with crime, and restrict her business to towing. But now, as Nestor is about to start school, she is questioning her decision to try to raise the boy. Whatever made her think she had any parenting skills? Her adopted son calls her Seashell instead of mommy. She's refusing to marry BJ because she's convinced he will leave her eventually. And she's terrified of joining the PTA. Then, on a hot morning in June, she raises a wrecked fishing boat from the waters of a Florida swamp, only to make a horrifying discovery. She hadn't meant to get involved, but this time murder found her. The police are calling it a cold case, but when Seychelle learns the victim was Grace, the sister of her mechanic, she cannot turn her back on the sweet teenage girl who went missing months earlier. The search for answers takes Seychelle from an opulent yacht bound to do missionary work in the Caribbean, to a religious commune bordering on the Everglades, to a yacht race in the Bahamas' sunny Abaco Islands. Can she stop the killer from murdering again without endangering herself and her family along the way?

Product Description:Book #3 of Christine Kling's Seychelle Sullivan series is loosely based on the real South Florida murder of Greek immigrant tycoon Gus Boolis, once the owner of South Florida's Sun Cruz Casino Gambling boats. In Seychelle's new caper, she may just be in over her head when murder and corruption come bobbing to the surface.Since kindergarten, Seychelle and her best friend, Molly, had been as close as sisters. Molly even dated Seychelle's brother. But it all ended suddenly when Nick Pontus, a slick, older, up-and-coming entrepreneur, came along. A smitten Molly quit school, married her new beau, and never spoke to Seychelle again. After thirteen years, it still stings.Seychelle didn't see the sniper who picked Nick off at the helm of his yacht, but she knows that there are plenty of people in South Florida who wanted to see the gambling-boat tycoon dead: the Russian mobsters looking for a piece of his casino action, the Indian gamers who resent his competition, and the ecological activists fighting his plans to develop Fort Lauderdale's waterfront. But it's Molly whom the cops zero in on. And despite her bitter feelings and against her better judgment, when her back-from-the-blue friend asks for help, Seychelle can't just weigh anchor and cruise. She's got to dive in.What she finds is a money-skimming scam aboard Nick's flagship gambling boat, Nick's new trophy wife turned merry rich widow, and Nick and Molly's teenage son, a scared kid with a big secret . . . and a killer on his trail. Protecting the boy, proving Molly's innocence, and navigating between squalls of gunfire add up to a tall order as salvage jobs go. But like any good captain, Seychelle will never abandon ship. Even if it means risking her life.Author bioChristine Kling is a sailor, writer, nomad. Her new Shipwreck Adventure thrillers, Circle of Bones, and Dragon's Triangle feature the adventures of a female sailor and a maritime archeologist. Christine lives aboard a 52-foot motorsailor with her family including Barney, the Yorkshire Terror and Ruby, the Wonder Dog.

From Publishers WeeklySalvage boat captain and sometime sleuth Seychelle Sullivan returns in Kling's follow-up to her well-received debut, Surface Tension, this time to aid a frightened Haitian waif named Solange. Seychelle-who's plying the South Florida waters on her tugboat, the Gorda, with her mechanic cum lover, B.J.-discovers the girl on a swamped boat and makes saving her, both from danger and from immigration officials, a personal crusade. The recent murder of some Haitian refugees and a creepy visitor to Solange's hospital room convince Seychelle that the frightened girl is in peril. More challenges come from tough guys with various agendas. Detective Victor Collazo, with whom Seychelle has a combative history, seems determined to thwart her effort and return the child. Border Patrol Agent Russ Elliott presses a similar agenda, though Seychelle's lawyer and best friend Jeannie does her best to parry his thrusts. Retired DEA agent Joe D'Angelo conveniently arrives to perk up Seychelle's libido (B.J. notwithstanding) and address some unanswered questions about her dead father, with whom he worked, and a surprise visit by Seychelle's black-sheep brother, Pit, threatens even more disruption. Savvy readers will be two steps ahead of the plot, which features several genre set pieces, but Kling writes with crisp assurance, especially about life in coastal South Florida, and her supporting cast, if crowded, is colorful.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.From Booklist– Kling adds swift plotting, convincing nautical detail, voodoo lore, and tropical scenery, all of which adds up to a satisfying if unsurprising series that is Florida's answer to Grafton and Barr. David WrightCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedCross CurrentFor Seychelle Sullivan, life is all about making a living, making love, and keeping her eye on the beauty that still remains in her beloved Florida. Then her life takes a turn when her tug intercepts with a swamped fishing boat in the Gulf Stream. Inside the boat are a murdered woman and a little girl in a white dress.Seychelle returns to shore with a traumatized Haitian girl named Solange in her cabin. Determined to protect Solange, and somehow keep her from being sent back to Haiti, Seychelle becomes obsessed with the forces that nearly killed the girl–and left her speechless with terror.Exploring the hidden world of Florida's Haitian community, Seychelle realizes that Solange is still in great danger–and that one killer has claimed dozens of lives. With a murderer stalking the child, Seychelle is racing to unravel dangerous truths. But to get the answers she needs, she must return to where it all started: in the waters of the Gulf Stream, where people died for their dreams of freedom– and a man with a machete did the work of the devil himself.

Seychelle Sullivan inherited the Sullivan Towing and Salvage Company from her father, and to survive on the waterfront, she's had to become a kick-ass captain and one tough woman. When boats break down, wreck or call for help, Seychelle and her tug Gorda are on the scene. Accidents do happen, but in South Florida, when somebody dies at sea, all too often it is murder.Book #1 SURFACE TENSIONOn a steamy Florida morning Seychelle is answering a Mayday call launched from the five-million-dollar Broward yacht called Top Ten. Seychelle has a personal stake in this rescue: her former lover, Neal Garrett, is the yacht's hired skipper. But being the first to reach Top Ten leads to a bloody payday. A beautiful woman has been stabbed to death onboard. And Garrett is nowhere to be found. T o find out what really happened to Neal Garrett, Seychelle must retrace his last steps, through two murders and a horrific crime wave, to a final confrontation with someone who may want to kill her . . . or be her salvation.Book #2 CROSS CURRENTFor Seychelle Sullivan, life is all about making a living, making love, and keeping her eye on the beauty that still remains in her beloved Florida. Then her life takes a turn when her tug intercepts with a swamped fishing boat in the Gulf Stream. Inside the boat are a murdered woman and a little girl in a white dress.Seychelle returns to shore with a traumatized Haitian girl named Solange. Determined to protect Solange, and somehow keep her from being sent back to Haiti, Seychelle becomes obsessed with the forces that nearly killed the girl. To get the answers she needs, Seychelle must return to where it all started: in the waters of the Gulf Stream, where people died for their dreams of freedom.Book #3 BITTER ENDThe third book in the Seychelle Collection is loosely based on the real South Florida murder of Greek immigrant tycoon Gus Boolis, once the owner of South Florida's Sun Cruz Casino Gambling boats.Seychelle didn't see the sniper who picked Nick Pontus off at the helm of his yacht, but she knows that there are plenty of people in South Florida who wanted to see the gambling-boat tycoon dead: the Russian mobsters looking for a piece of his casino action, the Indian gamers who resent his competition, and the ecological activists fighting his plans to develop Fort Lauderdale's waterfront. But it's Molly, Seychelle's former childhood best friend and Nick's ex-wife whom the cops zero in on. And despite her bitter feelings and against her better judgment, when her back-from-the-blue friend asks for help, Seychelle can't just weigh anchor and cruise. She's got to dive in.Book #4 WRECKERS' KEYIn the 1800s, Key West was built by wrecking skippers who in feats of derring-do raced to shipping disasters to save valuable cargos from the ocean depths. Today, as too many boats chase too few wrecks, salvage has turned into a cutthroat corporate enterprise. And when a friend is killed, Seychelle begins to suspect a chilling scenario: that modern-day wreckers are causing yachts to crash onto the reefs–and killing off whoever gets in the way.Nestor Frias was piloting a billionaire's luxury power yacht on its maiden voyage when it ran aground. A few days later, Frias was dead. His eight-months-pregnant widow is distraught, and a host of questions surround both Frias's death and the ship's accident. When another man dies while asking questions, Seychelle navigates the dangerous shoals and channels of the case and her life, unaware that a greater danger is looming: a murderous human storm designed perfectly for her.