Thomas McCall may be a commercial photographer on Granville Island, but his third series appearance opens with classic P.I. lingo – “The fog outside my window was so thick you could scoop it up with a shovel and cart it away in a wheelbarrow” – and a shapely blonde calling herself Anna Waverley who wants to hire him. The job, taking photos of a boat for a prospective buyer, seems easy enough, but the busy McCall’s schedule necessitates sending his friend and business partner Bobbi to do the honors. For her efforts, she ends up floating in the marina, beaten within an inch of her life, and once again Tom transforms from shutterbug to investigator.

Michael Blair serves up plot twists quick and plenty. His writing is terse and snappy and entertaining, but the novel unfolds like a relationship that has lost its passion. Both McCall and Bobbi are involved with partners they aren’t sure about, but the obvious next step – turning a platonic friendship into something more – suffers from the same kind of indecision. The duplicitous Anna would seem to be an interesting femme fatale, but her conniving ways lack the necessary sharpness.

The stakes are high enough, but they would be stronger if Blair allowed all of his characters – especially the affable McCall – to engage with each other, and with the reader, at a more visceral level. In other words, Depth of Field too often stays in the shallow end of the emotional pool.