Lynch: The Highest Tide

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Jim Lynch, The Highest Tide. [Novel] New York and London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005. 247 pages.

Jim Lynch lives in Olympia, Washington, the site of his first novel. Although fiction, this book has science besieged worthiness. He has won national journalism awards and published short fiction in literary magazines.

The story is told in the first person by Miles O'Malley, the 13 year old son in a dysfunctional family living in the South Sound, on Chatham Cove, part of Puget Sound. He researches the marine specimens he finds on his nightime adventures, and consults with a neighboring professor. He sells edible species to local restaurants and others to acquariums. His friends range from teenagers through an elderly woman he befriends. She is considered a "seer."

Through the course of a summer he discovers marine life that doesn't usually claim Chatham Cove as its habitat. After his discovery, the media descends on the town, followed by marine biologists and other scientists.

-- Notes by EHL