Night Moves (A Doc Ford Novel)

Great author

This is another compelling Doc Ford story. It contains many of the elements I look forward to when I get a Doc Ford book. We have Ford and Tomlinson interacting. I just love both their personalities and their attributes. And the other denizens of Dinkins Bay, including Crunch and Des. And the sea creatures Doc works with. You get a lesson in marine biology when you read one of these stories. And the feel of being on the edge of southwest Florida. The pilot of the small plane is another hero. The villains here are motley and confusing. But that's OK.As another viewer mentioned, Doc is less the hard-edge potential killer. He's making some mistakes. Is he losing his touch? Getting too old? He was getting physically soft in an earlier book and remedied that by a tough exercise program. He does more thinking things thru, which is good.Oh, the ending. At least White didn't do as Conan Doyle did when he had Sherlock Holmes fall to his death over a waterfall. Doyle must have had a time bringing Holmes back in a convincing manner after that. So does Ford live or die? Presumably he lives to tell the tale, but maybe not. Maybe White is tired of the series.Or maybe it's time for a change in the nature of the characters. I can't see Ford in a nine to five job, with a wife who drives a station wagon of kids around. Or mowing the lawn. He could settle down with the lady of his choice, still keep his biological supplies job. They both could go out as fishing guides. Maybe White wants to leave us with that in mind. I don't see a lot of material for Doc Ford stories if this happens, but then I don't have a writer's imagination.I remember an earlier book where Tomlinson nearly died. Glad he made it, as I can't see a very good Ford novel without the both of them Incidentally, what kind of name is Sighurdr? Norse?

White's Doc Ford novels have been hit-and-miss: the more recent books have focused more on Florida history and myth than Ford as an international operative, and the series is better for it, I think. In _Night Moves_, White combines the real-life incident of a flight of missing Avengers with the Florida fiction I am such a fan of. Ford is corralled into searching for the lost flight of Avengers, missing since the 1940s, and the goal of treasure hunters and aviation buffs for three quarters of a century. The search is sabotaged, Ford and compadres finding the tail section of a missing Avenger accidentally as a result. The story revolves around related questions: is the tail section from the missing flight? Who sabotaged the search aircraft - and why? White does a solid job of producing reasonable suspects, various outlaws and ne'er do wells that are common on the Florida waterfront, and provides tantalizing clues to the mystery of the Avenger.These elements would otherwise earn _Night Moves_ a 4-star review. However, Whites' inclusion of a water dog (found and rescued while Ford and company are walking out of the Everglades following their crash) warrants a 5th star. Not so much because of the "bit with a dog" (a nod and a wink to  Shakespeare In Love , but for White's allusion to his own dog, as written in his short story, "The Legend" found in  Batfishing in the Rainforest: Strange Tales of Travel and Fishing  ... the short story resonated with me powerfully, and it was bitter-sweet to see an homage made here. Any of White's Doc Ford stories make for idea summer reading - recommend, especially on the beach.

When I first started reading Randy White's books I was attracted by his views of beautiful Sanibel and Captiva and his cast of unique characters--specifically a trained government assassin and his strange relationship with a bizarre hippy type who may have been a former terrorist. Round this out with a supporting cast of true characters hanging out at Dinkins Bay and the outsiders who either supply an element of danger or of romance to the mix. The author's views of how Florida has changed (not for the better) over the years also gave me something to think about. I think a lot of his reviewers have been disappointed by some of his newer works because these elements were either missing or not as developed as in the past. I found this new book to contain more of what I originally liked in the Doc Ford series, as well as, giving us a tale mingled with a true historical event which in itself has fascinated mystery lovers for many years. The main characters are back and interacting with each other once again. I think for any author writing a series and maintaining the same characters in each it is a very difficult task not to over develop them to the point where we know too much about tgenm, or so that they become different people from the ones we were attracted to in the first place. I did find some of the plot to be a bit convoluted and the list of suspects attempting to kill Ford( or was it his hippy friend or was it someone else?) was a bit much. But frankly, I enjoyed this book, and once again look forward to the author's next visit to Sanibel and Doc's house on stilts!

Doc Ford continues to be among the better Florida-based series. Sure, his hippie sidekick Tomlinson often makes you wish you were there so you could clout him upside the head, and his teenage-ish angst over Hannah Smith is less endearing than the author thinks, but hell, it's Doc Ford, and if he's got a little more in the In-touch-with-his-feelings department than, say, Jack Reacher, or Travis McGee, he's still a great protagonist and it's an entertaining installment in his saga.