Dead in the Water is a novel by Nancy Holder, published by Abyss/Dell in 1994.
Dead in the Water is a horror novel which involves several characters (a boy sick with cancer and his doctor father, a wealthy squabbling couple, an older woman whose husband was lost at sea, and a female police officer who once failed to rescue a drowning boy) aboard a dilapidated old freighter.
Cliff Ramshaw reviewed Dead in the Water for Arcane magazine, rating it a 6 out of 10 overall.[1] Ramshaw comments that "Jarring, and not particularly evocative. Things start slowly, not least because the only character drawn with any conviction is the lady cop - one significant item of person history is about as much as the other characters get. Gradually, though, the plot and the fog thicken, and a brooding sense of nastiness evolves as our heroes desperately ignore the increasingly strange going on around them."[1]