Salvagia

Megayachts and breezy rivalries animate Chawaga’s wild sci-fi mystery debut set in hurricane-plagued near-future Florida. Deep sea diver Triss Mackey is looking for underwater salvage when she discovers the body of Edgar Ortiz, leader of Miami’s most powerful corporate mafia, the Mourners. Pulled into a high-stakes whodunit, Triss finds herself in the midst of a deadly power struggle for control of the waterlogged city. Along the way, she befriends Ortiz’s estranged son, Riley, and learns that a “cryptocult” called the Church of the Invisible Hand is secretly rebuilding the city using massive construction robots, endangering both a colony of python-repelling purple flamingos and a hippie commune hiding in the mangroves. If this setup weren’t inventive enough, Chawaga ties the murder to a rare Series 1 Ultimon game card (most of which were “lost when the convention center in Seattle collapsed during the Great Cascades Earthquake”). Highly valued among Miami’s nostalgic salvage collectors, the card is lodged inside gnarly wreckage. If Triss can muster the will to make the perilous dive, she’ll be closer to both solving the murder and retiring with her girlfriend, Myra, in their “semi-sentient” houseboat. Unfortunately, all this zany worldbuilding—plus a jumble of secondary characters with their own quirky backstories—overwhelms. This sunshine state extravaganza starts strong, but quickly gets lost in the weeds. (Aug.)