Randy Wayne White is DaMan for Florida history/mystery stories

books:


	• Dark Light (Doc Ford Novels) Randy Wayne White Putnam Adult, 2006 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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Randy Wayne White is DaMan for Florida history/mystery stories

I first discovered White on a trip to Sanibel a dozen years ago while vacationing with my sons and families. At Jerry's, where one must shop for groceries (or Bailey's), I found my first White book, either Sanibel Flats or Captiva. As a tourist, I saw the usual things, but I was captivated by the islands and wanted to know about things outside the "beaten path."

White uses his considerable knowledge of southwest FL along with his lyrical and informative prose, to say nothing of his intricate plots and well-developed characters. I've read all of his books as fast as I could--he draws the reader into the background of the REAL islands, and I learned much I wouldn't have by just going to Bubble Room because grandkids when small, celebrated birthdays there.

I cannot praise White's historical/mystery novels nor his laudable writing ability enough. His words flow, be it description, conversation, or interesting and well-developed characters. I'd love to meet Doc Ford or Tomlinson, especially. I know they are probably composites, but I'll bet Randy Wayne White knows people similar to them if not them.

Dark Light is no exception; it is one of his best, with an intricate, sometimes mystical bent. I've met a few similar to Chestra, and I particularly like that her mystery is left hanging to some extent. Maybe she'll appear in another book. The international connection to WWII is also evocative to me since my father died in the Battle of the Bulge when I was barely four. That topic and the boat and its artifacts and the subterfuge among the characters held my interest through a night. I really didn't know there were German U-boats off the coast of FL during WWII.

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A bit odd, but fun

This time around Doc Ford has a new problem. He's picking up the pieces after the hurricane devastated Florida, and one of his friends (a local fisherman and guide) is in trouble and has lost his boat to an unscrupulous marina owner. He's also met Tomlinson's new girlfriend, and since she is nothing like the rest of the Buddhist monk's women, Ford is intrigued. She's much older, and more sophisticated, and at times you wonder if she's a ghost of some sort. She does things like wander down to the beach during tropical storms. Once she gets introduced to Ford, she hires him and his friends to dive on and recover a wreck that's off the coast, and which she believes contains the bodies of several of her relatives.

The marina owner is really the villain here. The difficulty, such as it is, is that he's not much of a villain, and so you know Ford can handle him, despite the fact that initially he beats up Ford pretty good in one of the opening sequences in the book. White works the plot carefully, and the characters are interesting, but things do take a while to get anywhere, and it's not that suspenseful.

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Hurricanes and Sunken Treasure

This tale had lots of things Florida is famous for like hurricanes and sunken treasure.

I live in Florida and this book brought back lots of memories of Hurricane Charley. RWW accurately describes dealing with the government and insurance companies after a hurricane.

I'd never thought much about WWII and the possibility of shipwrecks from the era. This book kept my interest with its interesting plot.

The bad guy, Bern Heller, was so evil I had to take breaks after reading about him. I read on RWW's website, [...], that he will be in his newest novel.

Doc Ford fans and all people who love Florida will enjoy this book.

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good book with some typos in script

I love the Randy Wayne books but was disappointed in several obvious typos in the hardcover G.P. Putnam's book. They were distracting. I wonder if you have had similar comments. Will keep reading as many of this authors books I can find but it is disturbing to find printing errors - have never seen any in the paperback versions of these books.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

I magine hurricane winds over the Sahara Desert, preceded by a cavalry of tornadoes. Imagine dunes flattened, then resculpted. Then imagine all that at the bottom of the sea.

A Category Four hurricane has swept the west coast of Florida, creating havoc, changing lives, and reshaping the ocean bottom. Well-known reefs and wrecks have been covered up-and new ones have emerged. The old woman who visits Doc Ford's lab late one night has a haunting story, of a loved one lost while rendezvousing with a German submarine off the coast of Florida sixty years earlier, of her belief that he was being blackmailed and that the storm has given her a second chance to prove his innocence by uncovering the wreck of his boat-and the truth-if only Ford would look for it. Intrigued, Ford agrees, and sets in motion a chain of events that will change his life forever. For there are other things in that wreck as well, and other men want those things, men willing to commit terrible acts to get them. And the woman herself-the woman is not what she seems. . . .

Rich with passion and vivid, pungent prose, and some of the best characters found in suspense fiction today, Dark Light is a thriller of uncommon intensity.

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