The ‘Slipknot’ adventure Accustimed to risks, author Linda Greenlaw makes a foray into fiction

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Linda Greenlaw was navigating a fisherman’s boat out of the way the other day when the ferry arrived at the town landing on Isle au Haut. The owner of the boat hadn’t realized a freight run was coming in, and he was nowhere to be found. So Greenlaw and another bystander hopped aboard and pulled the boat out of the way.

Once she was on land, Greenlaw stopped to chat with another fisherman, working out details for an appointment later this month back on the mainland.

“I won’t be here for that appointment,” she told the man. “I’m going on book tour.”

“I read the reviews,” he said. “Sounds fantastic.”

The reviews are for “Slipknot,” Greenlaw’s fifth book, which Hyperion released earlier this month. Most readers know the swordfish-captain-turned-writer for “The Hungry Ocean,” which was anchored for 30 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list after its release in 2000. Her next book, “The Lobster Chronicles,” was an instant hit. And even last year’s “Recipes for a Very Small Island,” a cookbook she wrote with her mother, was popular.

Because “Slipknot,” which will have a launch party 4:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16, at Abel’s Yacht Yard in Mount Desert, is fiction, it is a much riskier project.

But not as risky as Greenlaw’s truck. “Cross your fingers,” she said as she bounced into the driver’s seat and turned the key. Nothing. Turn. Nothing. Greenlaw yanked an auxiliary charger from under her seat. “Just a minute,” she said.

She cable-jumped the 20-plus-year-old Dodge into starting, but left the hood up, an error she didn’t register until she was back in the driver’s seat.

“We don’t have license plates, and there’s no speed limit on the island,” said Greenlaw. “But someone might stop me if I leave the hood up.”

Possibly. But if the oddball characters who set the rules in “Slipknot” are any indication of small-town life in Greenlaw’s world, then an imprudent hood position could very easily go unnoticed.

The mystery novel introduces Jane Bunker, who returns to her native fishing community in Maine after a career as a detective in Miami. She takes a job as a marine consultant, but when the town drunk’s dead body washes up on the beach, Jane cannot resist analyzing the clues.

What she seems to have forgotten is that the Green Haven fishing community is as corrupt and complicated as the Mafia, and only marginally less threatening. Jane is spied on, shot at, locked up, misled, disrespected and snubbed. But the scrappy ace detective persists and even weathers a “Perfect Storm”-style adventure at sea. Unsurprisingly, the boat descriptions and onboard storm scenes offer some of the best writing in the book.

“They say you write about what you know,” said Greenlaw, sitting in the sunlit central room of her house near Robinson Point, where she has a bird’s-eye view of boats approaching the island. “I don’t know about murder. I know about coastal Maine communities. I know fishing. I know boats. I know the struggles and the hot topics. And I like to think I know the people. They’re my friends. They’re my family. They’re me.”

The pacing of the story is quick, but Greenlaw’s writing process was slow. She struggled to create fictional characters, a setting, dialogue, voice. She holed up in quiet places, but still could not figure out the dead body, how it got on the beach, who was responsible for it and how the murder would be resolved.

Like Jane, she persisted.

“Early on in my writing, I was absolutely certain I was not a writer,” said Greenlaw, who is 46. “I was sure I would wake up and read The New York Times asking: ‘Who told her she could write?’ This book is number five. I’m over the ‘I’m not a writer’ thing. But it’s still as much work, and it doesn’t come easy. Divine inspiration is a misconception.”

Greenlaw writes longhand in a notebook, usually for several hours in the morning. She readily admits that her editor had a strong influence on “Slipknot,” from helping to choose the genre to pushing for more fully drawn characters and scenes.

As with her fishing, Greenlaw took on the challenge with a captain’s fervor. Gumption and surrounding herself with capable people, she said, are guiding principles on land and sea.

“I don’t know if I was born that way or if I developed it fishing,” she said. “I like to think part of it is my years offshore. If you have a problem 1,000 miles off the dock, you either fix the problem or drift to Ireland.”

She paused. Then added: “The only exception is my golf game. I suck. But I enjoy it.”

She clearly also enjoys the attention her books have garnered. Between now and September, Greenlaw will make nearly 50 stops at bookstores from Maine to South Carolina, Ohio, Denver and Washington state.

What her writing and her breathless tour schedule indicate, she said, is her fearless and tireless work ethic. After all, she is accustomed to hauling traps and catching swordfish. Writing, which she also finds strenuous, is just another job.

The risky part comes in trying to create a fictional terrain and have it be of both her real world and a re-imagination of it. Green Haven, she said, is based on Stonington. Some of the characters are based on people she knows on Isle au Haut. But Jane, she insisted, is not a version of herself.

Jane knows boats. Jane is energetic, unrelenting, inventive and smart. She has car troubles. She’d like to have a husband and family, personal goals Greenlaw has mentioned in other books.

So how, exactly, are Jane and Linda different from one another?

“Jane is from Miami,” Greenlaw said.

Nope, she’s from Maine.

“OK, strike one. It’s tough not making her me,” Greenlaw retorted, and then joined the comparison game for a moment. “I really love single-malt scotch, and so does Jane.”

Suddenly Greenlaw stood up, as if moving her game piece into position. Her eyebrows raised, she said: “Jane is a cheapskate, and I am not. I know how to make money, and I know how to spend it. Phew. And I had the best childhood. Some people would say I had a long childhood. But Jane did not have a good childhood. And she’s uptight.”

Jane’s nasty childhood and the secrets of her adulthood will have to wait until the next book, however. Greenlaw is under contract for two more installments of the detective series, in which she will unfold the back-story of her protagonist.

“She may be able to loosen up in the future,” Greenlaw said of her leading lady. “She’s uptight about throwing uneaten food away. I’d be upset if someone threw food away, but only because I’d want to eat it. That’s another difference between Jane and me.”

Port in a Storm Bookstore will host Linda Greenlaw’s book launching party 4:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16, at Henry R. Abel’s Yacht Yard in Mount Desert. Other tour stops include: 6 p.m. June 19, Sherman’s Bookstore in Camden; 1 p.m. June 29, Mr. Paperback in Belfast; 11 a.m. June 30, Blue Hill Books in Blue Hill; and 6:30 p.m. Aug. 18 at the Isleboro Historical Society on Isleboro. For a complete list of tour stops, visit www.fishingwithlinda.net.