Tampa Burn (A Doc Ford Novel) - Softcover

Randy Wayne White is the author of seventeen previous Doc Ford novels and four collections of nonfiction. He lives in an old house built on an Indian mound in Pineland, Florida.

*Starred Review* Now in its eleventh episode, White's Doc Ford series, starring Sanibel Island marine biologist and veteran special-ops agent Doc Ford, can always be counted on for an entertaining mix of character interplay and straight-ahead action adventure. This time the dial shifts a bit toward the character side of the scale, as Ford revisits various people and issues from his not-quite-past life as a covert operative. The catalyst for all this stock-taking is the kidnapping of the son Ford only recently learned he had and the resurfacing of Pilar, the boy's mother and the great love of Ford's life. The kidnapping plot, in which Ford, with the help of hippie pal Tomlinson, must rescue his son from a serious psycho who likes to burn people, keeps the suspense churning, but the real focus here--for longtime series followers, at least--is on what this latest crisis means to Ford's life with the people he cares about: his son, girlfriend Dewey, the troubled Pilar, and especially Tomlinson, who has his own dark past. As always in White's work, the various bodies of water that surround and intersect Florida take on the multidimensional qualities of fully developed characters, adding not only atmosphere but also context to Ford's ongoing struggle to achieve in his human relationships the sense of equilibrium he has found in the natural world. He's not there yet, but for the reader at least, that's good news: this story is a long way from over. Bill Ott
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