Mayor of letters

Tom Edwards may have learned something about dolphins from living by the coast, but most of his recently published novel is definitely not based on Newport Beach.

The book’s main character, an environmental investigator who becomes entangled in an international intrigue, doesn’t sound much like the author either.

Edwards, 59, is a business and real estate attorney and a former mayor of Newport Beach. He has biked through France and Italy, and he pitches on a slow-pitch baseball team.

“Gin Clear Water” is the first book Edwards has written, but he’s already working on the sequel. Although his wife is an English professor, he doesn’t come from a literary background and doesn’t consider himself very artistic.

“I don’t think I can even draw a straight line,” Edwards said.

Nevertheless, he’d been kicking around plans for the novel ever since he came back from a long run around the bay about five or six years ago.

“I said, you know, I have an idea for a book. I have a beginning, a middle and, I think, an end,” Edwards said. “So I just sat down and started writing.”

Some of the book does draw on his own experience. He loves to travel and has visited the Caribbean, so he set the book there on a fictional island. Dolphins fascinate him, so he wrote them in too.

The plot centers on Philip Grady, an investigator called to find out why dolphins are dying, apparently because of the local tuna fleet -- which isn’t actually bringing in any fish. While checking that out, Grady falls in love and then puts his life at risk when he stumbles upon a drug- and gun-smuggling operation.

Edwards kept his work quiet, so friends were surprised to hear he had a book out, he said. It can be printed on demand by BookLocker, one of several companies that allow authors to self-publish books and then sell copies online. A major distributor, Ingram, also offers the book and it can be found at five local stores.

At one store, more than half a dozen copies of “Gin Clear Water” have sold, and that’s in a slow time of year, a bookseller said.

“He’s definitely in my top 10 at the bookstore,” said Lido Village Books owner Dan Schmenk.

“It is a book that’s not nationwide and stuff, but I’ve had a lot of interest, and I’ve sold about half of what he’s given me so far,” Schmenk said.

The book hasn’t changed Edwards’ life yet, but he’s plugging away at the sequel because he finds it relaxing to write.

“I still need to practice law, but if something comes of it, great,” he said. “It’s still part-time.”