Mangrove Coast (Hardcover)

On and off again Ford has been haunted by the death of spook pal Bobby Richardson, who died in an explosion in Cambodia during the post-Vietnam War days. It was a meaningless tragedy, the result of a land mine that destroyed a good friend and left a beautiful wife and a child to fend for themselves back home.

When the grown-up daughter, twenty-five-year-old Amanda, contacts Ford, quoting a letter from her father in which he said Ford would always be there in an emergency, Ford can hardly turn her away. He couldn't anyway, she's a damsel in distress, after all.

Amada's mother, Gail Richardson Calloway, has been deserted by her second husband and gone off to Colombia, apparently but unbelievably of her own free will, with a very unsavory character, Then second husband, Frank Calloway, is found dead soon after her disappearance and now Gail's bank accounts are being methodically depleted. Amanda wants Ford to help search for her mother and to bring her back home.

Ford flies off to Colombia to find Bobby's widow, then tracks and follows her to Panama. Along the way he manages to get into fights to the death with some pretty tough dudes in this action-packed thriller that I simply couldn't get enough off. At times the story seemed a bit of a clichè, but you what, it's been over a week since I finished the book and I'm still thinking about it. That really says something about a story.

Reviewed by Leeann Douglass

In every Doc Ford book, there is a sort of slow, meandering quality to the stories. You genuinely feel yourself really drawn in to the Florida where Mr. White worked for so many years as a fishing guide. The settings and characters of Dinkins Bay and Sanibel Island have always been as much a reason to read the stories as the main plot itself. With this book, while the atmosphere is certainly there along with the usual cast of characters, the story focuses heavily around a truly evil person doing some truly evil things. The sort of things that only a man like Doc Ford can set right. His growing awareness of the evil he is confronting, and his righteous quest to rescue the wife of an old friend, would make a fantastic movie. This book is filled with some very funny scenes (both Tomlinson and Tucker Gatrell are featured prominently in this story, and both made me laugh out loud at times), and it's also got some of the best suspense and action I've read in a long time. There is also the visceral pleasure of seeing the breed of poetic justice meted out against the bad guys that's so much a part of the Doc Ford series.

Don't pay any attention to those who say this book isn't one of Randy Wayne White's best. It is. In fact, it's on the top of my list so far. I may change my opinion, though, because 'Ten Thousand Islands' is on my short list of books to read next...

Randy Wayne White has been compared favorably to John D. MacDonald (and deserves to be) but the plot for "Mangrove Coast" treads a little TOO close to a former Travis McGee novel, "The Deep Blue Empty." Both novels had a way of meandering along slowly to a final, violent conclusion.

I noticed that one of the reviews for this book's follow-up, "Shark River," accused it of being too action-packed. I would imagine that the readers' reactions to this book are the reason why.

Keep up the GOOD work, Mr. White!