When I started reading Charles J. Thayer’s Downeast Enigma, I thought it very poorly written, but I figured I’d give it a chance. Now that I’ve finished it, I’m of two minds. I still think it wasn’t well written, but the story was effective in its way.

Steve Wilson, our hero, is a former bank auditor who took early retirement to become a private investigator. He calls his agency Paradox-Research (ignorance of proper hyphen use is a writing red flag, in my opinion). He lives aboard his Maine lobster boat, where he’s often visited by his girlfriend Amanda, an FBI agent.

When a Boston banker’s private plane crashes in the Gulf of Maine, killing him, his bank asks Steve to look into his affairs. There was a suspicious intrusion on his computer after the accident, and they fear the dead man might have been involved in something illicit. His death might even be murder. Steve goes to work with the help of a hacker friend, and Amanda seems to have lots of freedom to help him out in her spare time.

I found Downeast Enigma a strange mystery novel. Most of Steve’s investigation seems to be carried out through phone calls and online (though he does interview some people). All the violence (and there is some) happens offstage. You might even call this book a cyber-cozy mystery.

My greatest problems were with the prose. The book is written in the present tense, which I consider an affectation – though I can’t honestly say it interfered with my reading. The dialogue was remarkably wooden – all the characters speak as if writing a report, and everybody pretty much talks the same way.

Still, I read through to the end, and the plot kept my interest. I’m not panning it entirely, but I don’t think I’ll rush out and buy another book in the series.