A Drop In the Ocean is the second book by Steve Wright in the Barry Donovan series following on from Love, Avalon. Donovan has now settled in Sydney after moving out from London in the previous book but is still gifted with a wise-cracking mouth and a proclivity for putting himself in the middle of violent situations. He still has the events of the previous book hanging over his head and this has so far prevented him from securing citizenship and has also disallowed him from working - officially. On the plus side after Love Avalon, he is now living with his girlfriend and confidante, Gabrielle.

Not believing that the accidental death of the head of SLUDGE was accidental, Donovan drops his investigation of the possible infiltration and starts investigating what he believes is a murder. After all, he has nothing better to do with his time.

At first his investigation takes the form of simply interviewing the last people to have seen the unfortunate Rodney alive, including Rodney's successor at SLUDGE and a fellow urban spelunker. Meeting only limited success and much to his trepidation, he decides that he should follow in Rodney's footsteps and venture into the sewers too.

The story moves along nicely from this point, although he was a little hesitant before plunging into the drains beneath Sydney. When he emerges, he is led to a secret chemical dumping site nearby. Just like that we are given our link between an environmental group and a reason to silence the group's leader. From here, events move very quickly from lead to lead ensuring that the story remains absorbing throughout.

Wright quickly hooks you with the engaging first person narrative of Donovan and the sharp dialogue that crackles with bold good humour. In a way, this has a lulling effect that serves to catch you unprepared when things turn violent and Donovan finds himself in extreme danger. The change in tonal qualities is accentuated by the suddenness in which it happens and before you know it you are all too aware that you're in the middle of a hardboiled thriller and that people are going to get hurt.

Through all of this, Donovan is fighting a little bit of a drinking problem that is threatening to get out of hand and this tends to be a constant focus for him. Fortunately the story is not dominated too much by his alcoholic intake, but then again, it wouldn't really be a fair dinkum PI mystery if the protagonist didn't have a bit of a drinking problem now would it? Of course, accompanying this comes relationship problems between Donovan and Gabrielle, sort of completing the troubled hardboiled protagonist picture.

I was rather disappointed in the ending, feeling that it was very rushed. After an evenly paced story that managed to grab me and draw me in, the quick bland ending that is simply explained to us unemotionally by Donovan after the event was definitely a let down and left me feeling cheated.

All in all though, I enjoyed this fast-moving thriller with its occasional touches on real environmental issues. It would have been easy to fall into preach-mode with kind of topic, but Wright avoids this. There were times where it was difficult to work out exactly what Donovan was hoping to achieve with his investigation which probably accounts for the disappointments mentioned above. For biting humour and a solid hardboiled mystery, read A Drop In the Ocean.