Dead in the Water: A DCI Frank Merlin Thriller - Book 5 takes place in 1942, not long after the United States has joined World War II, and with the new American presence at the warfront, there is also an increased US military presence in London. The result is that new protocols are in place for whenever US military personnel are involved in any crimes in London, and in most cases, that means the US MPs take over the case and deal swift justice.
When a dead body turns up in Soho and a drunken US Airman is found asleep on a bench wearing the victim's jacket, Captain Max Pearce of the American military police swoops in and relieves Merlin of the case. Merlin impresses upon Pearce of his initial findings and his beliefs that Airman Virgil Lewis is innocent and the man's claims about how he came to have the jacket are reasonable, but it is clear that Pearce's particular prejudices are overriding any actual detective work that Pearce might intend to perform.
Unfortunately, Merlin finds his hands severely tied in this particular case, and while he does have some inside knowledge regarding the victim and what he is doing in the country, he is forbidden to convey those details to the Americans by his source, Harold Swanton of MI5. So while Merlin can't directly work on exonerating Lewis, he hopes to find ways to sow enough doubt through unofficial channels to hopefully slow down Pearce's desire for swift "justice."
Merlin quickly finds his hands full though when a second dead body comes up, that of an apparent businessman named Frederick Vermeulen. While Vermeulen is in the country to help facilitate an art deal between two wealthy collectors, it seems the man also has some history in the spy game as well, and given Swanton's previous revelations about the first victim, Merlin can't help but wonder just how many spies are running around London killing each other.
As it turns out, the aforementioned art deal is actually a central plot to Dead in the Water. Leon Van Buren is a man of some wealth, but between the war and a legal dispute involving his late wife's family, his funds aren't as liquid as he would like. So, he has decided to sell off a pair of DaVinci sketches that he has in his collection. The most prospective buyer is another wealthy man named Calouste Gulbenkian, but Gulbenkian is based in Lisbon, so he has sent an associate to help facilitate the purchase, the now late Vermeulen.
On the cusp of sealing the art deal, not only does Vermeulen turn up dead in his apartment, but there is also a break in at Van Buren's house where the safe is breached. Not only are the DaVincis missing, but also a rather large sum of money. To make matters worse, Van Buren himself has gone missing, although it isn't long before he turns up, Dead in the Water.
Merlin and his team have got their work cut out for them. Was Van Buren killed because he interrupted the theft? It can't be a coincidence that he and Vermeulen are both dead, and if that isn't a coincidence, is the first death also connected? After all, both Vermeulen and the Soho victim were spies, albeit for different countries. As Merlin digs deeper into the connections surrounding these victims, he finds no shortage in suspects, especially for Van Buren.
Van Buren's brother-in-law knows that his sister's children have no real desire to pursue the lawsuit that their father was pushing and these same children could find a lot of their monetary woes will dissolve with both of their parent's wills enacted. There is also the case of one Nathan Katz, who learns of the DaVincis and recognizes them as ones stolen from his parents by Nazis before they disappeared some years back. Katz did confront Van Buren about the artwork, but could he have come back later and had a more violent argument with the older man?
Merlin and team find themselves tackling all three murders at full steam. Merlin has a bad feeling that if he doesn't resolve these cases quickly, Lewis could be executed as an innocent man, and even if it is only tenuously connected to Van Buren's death, he can't help but feel like the three cases are a knot that must be untied together.
Dead in the Water is my first foray into Ellis' DCI Frank Merlin series, and while it is clear that the previous four books have built up a good bit of history, I never really felt like I was missing vital information. Recurring characters like the American Detective Bernard Goldberg or Harold Swanton clearly have a lot of backstory in this series, but Ellis did a great job of letting the reader know just what was necessary in order to advance the current plot.
The one issue I did have with Dead in the Water was that there were times when I got introduced to a lot of apparently random characters quickly. And I'm not talking about staple characters that a follower of the series would already be familiar with, but characters specific to the mysteries in this book. Ultimately all of these characters served a major purpose, even if some of them were just well placed red herrings. By the time the story wrapped up, I had a better understanding of these characters and their importance to the plot. The issue is that when they were first introduced, they often felt like they came out of nowhere and I seriously doubted their importance until I was able to fit them into the grander story.
That being said, I did enjoy following Merlin and his team as they thread their way through these cases and navigate the wartime landscape that was WWII London. There is a good chance I will now go back and read the first four books in Ellis' DCI Frank Merlin series.
