Caribbean Rim

February 5, 2018
Bestseller White’s diverting, if sluggish, 25th Doc Ford novel (after 2017’s Mangrove Lightning) focuses on an unlikely couple. A chance meeting in Ocala National Forest between unhappily married Leonard Nickelby, a college professor working for a Florida state agency that monitors treasure hunters, and much younger Lydia Johnson, a former student of his who’s illegally looking for treasure in the park, leads to an affair. Eight months later, the two set off for the Bahamas in search of treasure. On their trail is marine biologist and sometime government operative Doc, who’s worried that the pair might get into trouble, as they soon do. The diminutive Leonard proves surprisingly brave in various perilous situations, but he can’t prevent Efren Donner, a nasty Hollywood mogul in cahoots with Salvadorian drug dealers, from taking him and Lydia captive. In a tense chapter, Lydia must try hard to keep Efren from doing further violence. Many readers will enjoy the boating and fishing lore, but others will wish that Doc and friends had done less talking in between the action scenes. Author tour. Agent, Esther Newberg, ICM.

March 1, 2018
Looks like Dr. Marion Ford's latest research project in marine biology will have to wait for yet another tangle, his 25th, with members of a lower species.Doc Ford (Mangrove Lightning, 2017, etc.) tells everyone who'll listen that he's come to the Bahamas to continue his study of sharks' responses to the sound of boat engines. Even though he has official documents to support his story, it's not the whole story; he's really looking for archaeologist Leonard Nickelby, a former professor who ended his partnership with aging treasure hunter Carl Fitzpatrick by running off with three antique coins and a logbook recording all the best places Fitzpatrick had to search for booty. It turns out that Nickelby and his former student Lydia Johnson, who's injecting him with the testosterone she's scored from her stint in a veterinary practice, are after bigger, more recent booty: the $400 million Lydia's former boss, con man Jimmy Jones, had skimmed from Benthic Exploration and managed to hide somewhere before Nickelby's testimony helped send him to prison, where he was killed a few weeks ago. As Ford's search for the searchers leads him first to dive-shack owner Tamarinda Constance then to Hubert "Sandman" Purcell, the trawler captain she spurned, his old pal Seagard Tomlinson learns that Ford's not the only one looking for the people who are looking for the treasure. From this point on, felonies pop up faster than barnacles on a boat's hull. So many characters are hiding so many secrets that so many other characters learn something about that it's no surprise to find ad hoc alliances sprouting and dissolving hours later. The extravagant criminal tally includes impersonation, abduction, assault and battery, the reckless operation of seagoing vessels, and enough homicide to seriously thin the cast of treasure hunters and the people hunting them.Despite the reflective tone of the tale, the plot is driven by so many boats moving at such top speeds that you have to hope there are no sharks in the neighborhood. If there are, poor them.

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February 15, 2018
When Doc Ford, White's marine biologist and black-ops contractor, leaves the friendly confines of Dinkins Bay Marina on Sanibel Island to venture into the Caribbean, he's either off on one of his blacker ops, or, as is the case here, he finds himself cavorting about in a kind of Shakespearean romp, albeit with more bloodshed. Cuba Straits (2015) was A Midsummer Night's Dream recast as a slasher movie with baseball players. This time it's The Tempest with Ford as Prospero, directing traffic while various treasure hunterssome bumbling but good-hearted, others addlepated but lethalsearch for Spanish gold. Naturally, Tomlinson, Ford's New Agey pal, is in tow, taking the role of Ariel and, as always, finding magic where Ford detects menace. Among the treasure hunters are a couple of seemingly mismatched loversa bald archaeologist in the midst of a major-league midlife crisis and a much-younger woman made up of equal parts larceny and decency. All the players land on a mysterious, off-the-charts island whose residents practice a Caribbean, magic-infused version of freemasonry. Hats off to White for combining suspense and madcap adventure with such dexterity. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Being an under-the-radar kind of guy, Doc Ford is likely not too happy at the way his adventures keep turning up on best-seller lists, but he'd better deal with it; the trend isn't about to change.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2017

Marine biologist Doc Ford agrees to help buddy Carl Fitzpatrick, whose shipwreck chasing leads to trouble with the Florida Division of Historical Resources. What's worse, the division's director has disappeared. Doc is wrapping up 13 consecutive years as a New York Times best seller.

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