Breathing Each Other's Air

Cynthia Whissell is a psychology professor at Laurentian University.

This is an atypical detective story that would probably not appeal to
aficionados of the standard forms of the genre. There is a mystery in
the novel, but the tension of a potential murder is lacking because the
event took place in the past. A flavoring of ghostliness is added when
people now dead appear and speak to the protagonist, Elizabeth, who is a
historian in search of a truth and something of a feminist. The novel is
also about scuba diving, which is used as a model for interdependence
(hence the title). Most of all, it is a novel about a quest; like all
good novels of this type, it illuminates several important things the
characters discover about themselves as a direct result of the quest.

Readers alert to the focus of the novel (self-discovery rather than
whodunit) will find it enjoyable in spite of occasional disappointing
moments—as, for example, when the heroine foolishly exceeds her
allotted time underwater, not once but twice! This novel’s weakest
point is probably the relationship between Elizabeth and her late
father. Even Freud would likely cry “stereotype!” when faced with
Elizabeth’s daughterly laments.