Will it float?

Is it just me, or has the conversation climate dramatically shifted towards the topic of submarines? Everyone I know has something to say about this most fallic of transportation methods. Maybe because everyone I know is reading this book:

From the Depths
by Gerry Doyle
McBooks Press, Chicago: 2007

While normally I feel the immediate need to scoff an author who sets his name BIGGER than the title of the book,* this setup does not repulse me. Doyle's name is subtly presented, despite its massive size. The blue-on-blue makes me feel like I'm floating facedown in a swimming pool (as I often find myself), staring down at the unfamiliar, gracefully shifting appearance of my shadow on the surface of the deep...it would be enough to put anyone in a relaxing, oxygen-free sleep. However, the blood-red name of the book keeps us from an untimely slumber. There's the scent of murder mystery in the confined air of this book, and it smells fishy.

The dark, looming, foreshortened submarine shape makes me assume this book centers around a female protagonist stuck on a submarine full of big burly men. (Ok, so I've already read the inside flap. Let's pretend my Freudian analysis is very insightful.) So yeah, plunging ocean depths, sexy murder investigations...you see where I'm going. On the offhand chance this book is NOT sub-porn, I'm sure it's not sub-par, either. I know this because of the EXCELLENT "advance praise" quote chosen for the back cover. There's nothing worse than an overblown list of random nobodies to make a book seem more accomplished. I appreciate the concise remark by Charles Dickenson (I'd believe anyone with a name like that) whose two lines of praise reads sincerely and pointedly to the text.

Though there's only one star on the front, I'd give this cover at least 5 (scale TBD). 5 stars and 26 barnacles.




*Or, barely includes a title at all, MR. KLOSTERMAN:

Shame, shame.