Big Breath In, award-winning author John Staley’s first stand-alone novel, is one that fans of unique gritty investigative crime stories will not want to miss. This poet and former Writer Laureate for Alaska has previously written two noteworthy series. He debuted in 1992 with The Woman Who Married a Bear which won the 1993 Shamus Award for the Best First PI Novel and continued with seven other books set in Sitka featuring Private Investigator Cecil Younger. His Cold Storage series of four books are also set in small town Alaska but are more loosely related and incorporate more humor into his detective crime fiction.
The expression “big breath in” is universally said by physicians while listening intently to the lower lobes of your lungs only heard from the back with those deep breaths possibly revealing ominously abnormal sounds. Whales, those giant mammals that live in the sea but breathe air, must take really deep breaths to survive underwater. A general estimate for the amount of time a whale can hold its breath varies according to their size, age, and species with blue whales averaging 10-30 minutes, humpback whales, typically 30 but as long as 60 on deep dives, sperm whale can comfortably go for 90 and the Cuvier’s beaked whales have had dives recorded at 138 minutes.
This seemingly irrelevant minutia is crucial information for protagonist Delphine, a retired marine biologist from Alaska whose special area of study was whales. She would rather be home instead of the hotel room across from the Seattle Hospital where she has been living for the past five months to accommodate frequent treatments for aggressive terminal cancer. She feels she is living in a macabre version of the Hotel California where you can check in but never check out and most guests are outpatients or their relatives. She doesn’t wish to burden her son and his young family who are unaware of the severity of her condition. Seattle offers advanced treatments for cancer patients as well as palliative care but there is no hope proffered now for Delphine’s recovery. “Big breath in” is her all-too frequent command from attending oncologists and pulmonologists.
Delphine lacks the energy as well as the interest to explore Seattle’s sights and restaurants hold little appeal for someone who can barely taste food. When not at the hospital, she spends her time writing detailed, contemplative memos from copious notes based on her decades of field studies. Her thoughts and observations are written in italics in each chapter documenting her passion for her lifelong work and making her scientific legacy tangible. One cannot help but recall Herman Melville’s passages on the whale in his epic Moby Dick, although Straley keeps them briefer thus avoiding the tedium.
It serves an interesting counterpoint to the investigation and rescue mission Delphine has launched when she stumbles upon a baby trafficking ring. Her late husband had been a private investigator who tragically met his death in a bicycling accident near their home in Alaska. Delphine is 68 years old and knows she has little time left on Planet Earth as treatments are no efficacious. When she leaves the hospital to return to her temporary residence, she is contemplating stopping them. The “Pill Hill” area of Seattle has become as run down as many areas of the formerly safe and beautiful Emerald City with numerous homeless encampments and high crime. The short distance between the hospital and hotel can be hazardous as patients are often robbed; they are targeted for their pain medications. Walking home, she witnesses a heated altercation between a large, threatening man, later identified as Tyler Dearborn and his girlfriend Leigh and attempts a rescue of the young woman and her infant. She provides temporary shelter and promises assistance but Leigh vanishes along with the baby boy she calls “Blue Sky.”
With nothing to lose, Delphine begins sleuthing; confirming her suspicions Tyler or Tye is not only a pimp but is responsible for trafficking infants and toddlers for illegal adoptions. The children are taken from the prostitutes he manages or babies are snatched outright. The victimized women are primarily illegal aliens or runaways afraid of the police and social services. All are Caucasian as he guarantees “white purity” to his skinhead, white nationalist baby buying ‘clientele’. Delphine surreptitiously interviews the women, thus learning Tye will be rendezvousing with his fellow outlaws in a motorcycle rally encampment in Yakima about 150 miles distant over the Cascades in Eastern Washington. When healthy, she was an expert survivalist, able to camp in any climate and well prepared. Fortunately, she had brought some of her outdoor gear with her to Seattle and despite her diminished strength and energy, and she sets out on a Harley-Davidson Sportster.
Delphine prudently informed some friends of her plans and was willing to accept help. Motivated by her concern for the stolen babies, she will be facing kidnappers, murderers and violent members of an Aryan biker gang possessing little respect for women whom they regard as being a subservient, lesser species. Assistance arrives from an unexpected source, a well-organized, physically fit lesbian motorcycle gang. The adventures begin and the pace is fast and furious.
Big Breath In is not a sweetly amusing cozy mystery. Delphine and her confederates are embroiled in a dangerous, life-threatening confrontation with the dregs of society for whom violence and murder is a way of life. The thriller was inspired by and is dedicated to the author’s wife, Jan, who is a renowned marine biologist and whale specialist. They have lived on the beach in Sitka since 1974 not long after he received a BA in English and certification in horse shoeing. He has worked as a farrier, criminal defense investigator and writer. Caution: reading his crime thrillers may become a benign addiction.
Publish Date: 11/12/2024
Genre: Mystery
Page Count: 288 pages
Publisher: Soho Crime
ISBN: 9781641296540