#Bookreview – Swimming for profit and pleasure: The Port Naain Intelligencer

What Amazon says

Benor learns a new trade, joins the second hand book trade, attempts to rescue a friend and awakens a terror from the deep. Meddling in the affairs of mages is unwise, even if they have been assumed to be dead for centuries.

My review

I am a fan of Jim Webster’s as I really enjoy his very British humour. In this action packed tale, Benor Dorfinngil is the main character and has a thrilling adventure when he is hired to do some diving by the mysterious and wealthy Westfran family who live in the more rural village of Stone Harbour. We are introduced to the family through Benor’s friend, poet Tallis Steelyard, who was invited to attend one of their soirees and who made it his business to escape from their house as quickly as possible. There do not appear to be any menfolk in the family and the women are all aloof and have a stiff and unyielding way of walking and holding themselves. It is all rather strange.

Benor becomes involved with the family after he takes a job working in a book shop and purchases an interesting box of books, including a 500 year old book written by an ancestor of the Westfran family. It soon becomes apparent that this book holds family secrets and the Westfran women will stop at nothing to get it back.

What has happened to Benor’s friend, Timms, the previous diver hired by the Westfrans and who has suddenly disappeared? What secrets do the harbour hold that it attracts such an unusually high number of male squid and why do the Westfran women all look so similar? Find out by reading this interesting and well written novella.

Purchase Swimming for profit and pleasure: The Port Naain Intelligencer