There are two schools of thought about summer reading.

One is the big book theory: You set off for vacation with a giant honking volume, so fresh off the presses you can smell the ink. It's the very latest, very hottest techno-thriller, bodice-ripper or roman á cannibal, so massive it almost doesn't qualify as carry-on luggage when you board the plane.

You spend your week at the beach lugging it from deck chair to night stand and back, trying to keep track of the plot and the characters while your brain is fogged with margaritas and sunburn, determined to finish it because you know you won't after you get home.

Geez, you might as well stay at work.

Here's the other theory: Vacation reading that's a plate of airy fictional canapés, vivid and tasty and bite-sized. Nibble one on the plane, savor one by the pool, lick up a couple between your long afternoon nap and a leisurely dinner. You are, after all, on vacation.

One such platter, freshly published, is especially apropos for the vacation season. Death Cruise, edited by the estimable Lawrence Block, is a concoction of mystery short stories that are all set at sea.

The 20 authors represent an interesting range. A few are very familiar -- the volume opens with a 1936 story by Agatha Christie, "Problem at Sea," featuring Hercule Poirot at his sniffy, brilliant best.

John Mortimer's entry is "Rumpole at Sea," and if you have trouble imagining the eccentric barrister and She Who Must be Obeyed on a romantic cruise, well, so does Rumpole. To make matters worse, among their sailing companions are his particular nemesis Mr. Justice Graves, an annoyingly nosy detective author and a newlywed couple with a mysterious secret.

Jeremiah Healy's Boston investigator John Francis Cuddy delves into the shipboard death by drug overdose of piano player in "Hodegetria." In "S.O.S.," John Lutz sends a character modeled on the unbearable Dr. Laura on a relaxing cruise, where she gets a very satisfying comeuppance.

Other authors represented may be less familiar to American readers, but they're well worth meeting. Stories from Danish, Cuban, Spanish and Dutch writers bring a delicious international flavor to the book.

In "The Merry Ghosts of the Grampus," Arnaldo Correa plunges an escaped prisoner running for his life into an eerie echo of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym."

Jacob Vis' "The Mermaid" is a touching tale of love found and lost with a shocking ending. And in "Havanightmare," by Jose Latour, a passenger is imprisoned in her cabin by a desperate man whose motives are far from what they seem.

Some of these stories are funny, some of them are clever, a few have a dark edge, but none of them will give you nightmares, or even put you off considering a cruise vacation. They might inspire you, though, to speculate about that couple at the captain's table who seem just a little too happy. . . . bon appetit.

As always, this and other titles reviewed in Colette's List may be purchased at a significant discount from The Bookstall.

Colette's Archive

Colette's List 1: Hiaasen: Murder Under The Palms

Colette's List 2: Hall, MacDonald & More Murder

Colette's List 3: Crews: The Artist As Scar Lover

Colette's List 4: Mosley: Easy In The City Of Angels

Colette's List 5: Chandler: Trouble Is My Business

Colette's List 6: Mango, Mortal Sin & Margaritaville

Colette's List 7: A Monstrous Regiment of Women

Colette's List 8: The Inferno: James Ellroy's L.A.

Colette's List 9: Spenser Is Parker, Only Taller

Colette's List 10: Tony Hillerman: The Navajo Way

Colette's List 11: Small Towns, Mean Streets

Colette's List 12: James Lee Burke: Blood On The Bayou

Colette's List 13: Rick Harsch: Rust Belt Noir

Colette's List 14: Harrison: A Novel Worth Waiting For

Colette's List 15: Kingsolver: Power & Its Price

Colette's List 16: Macdonald: Secret Lusts & Terrible Revenge

Colette's List 17: Creating Colette: A Scandal In Paris

Colette's List 18: Rushdie: Shake, Rattle & Roll

Colette's List 19: Betrayal & Madness, Loss & Redemption

Colette Bancroft, a writer known at various times in her career to date as The Goddess of the Classroom, The Empress of Haute Cuisine and The Spitball Queen, is at work on a mystery novel of her own. She is an editor on the Metro Desk at the St. Petersburg Times.

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