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Florida fiction authors are as varied as the Florida landscape--Carl Hiassen is the spokesman for Miami and the Gold Coast; Tim Dorsey's works favor Tampa and its outlying areas, Dan Allison features Pinellas County's beach communities, and Randy Wayne White bases many of his tales in Florida's southwest coast, sometimes referred to as "the Mangrove Coast".

Although "the Mangrove Coast" unofficially extends from coastal Monroe and Collier Counties northward to the "Nature Coast" in Hernando County, White's recurring hero, Marion "Doc" Ford, lives in the laid back coastal community known as Sanibel Island. Ford is quite the Florida Folk Hero-raised in the Everglades, he became and remains a marine biologist (one of this author's early dreams in high school days) who was formerly an intelligence operative stationed in southeast Asia after the Viet Nam conflict in the mid 70's.

Unlike the often-humorous works of Hiassen and Dorsey, White is a hard-hitting and concise author whose gripping work leaves you with no doubt that he is in total control of his story lines.

Our adventure opens with "Doc" Ford discovering the body of one Frank J. Calloway sprawled dead over the floor of Calloway's Boca Grande beach resort home. Before local authorities arrive at the scene, "Doc" tries to determine just how Calloway died. Did he die of natural causes, or was he murdered? For that matter, how did "Doc" get mixed up in this mess in the first place?

To answer the question immediately above, we flash back to "Doc's" intelligence operative days in southeast Asia some 20 plus years ago when he used to bunk with a CIA operative named Bobby Richardson. Richardson, a brutally handsome young man, was married to a terminally pretty young woman of Latin heritage named Gail. One of the results of Bobby and Gail's Holy union was a daughter named Amanda. Amanda turned out to be different than her parents-she was a plain looking little girl-a girl who also had a lazy eye.

"Doc" Ford, however, saw in Polaroid snap shots that Gail had sent to Bobby Richardson from stateside, a sense of beauty and strength of character in this otherwise painfully homely little girl known as Amanda. Not long after this tour of southeast Asia, "Doc" Ford had the painful and thankless responsibility of shipping back to the States what little of Bobby Richardson's remains were left after a surprise fire fight by opposition forces.

The close bond that Marion "Doc" Ford and Bobby Richardson had for one another would not be cut short by Richardson's early demise, however. Flashing forward to several weeks ago from present day, Ford received a phone call and subsequent visit from a twenty something young lady named Calloway-Amanda Calloway.

Seems that Amanda Calloway had a revelation from her distant past in the likeness of old post cards from her natural father Bobby Richardson. That revelation was that should the chips be down or the impossible need to be breached, that either his wife Gail, or his daughter Amanda call on "Doc" Ford, a man of exceptional integrity, inner strength and unimpeachable honesty. Yes, Amanda Calloway had a problem of Biblical proportions-her mother Gail Calloway, recently divorced wife of Frank J. Calloway and former wife of the deceased Bobby Richardson, was last seen with a despicable land developer named Jackie Merlot. Last reports were that she and Merlot were last seen in Merlot's sailboat headed for Colombia.

Was Gail Calloway kidnapped and kept drugged and possibly sexually abused by Merlot?

Was her life in mortal danger?

Were either Gail Calloway or Jackie Merlot responsible for the death of Frank Calloway?

Could "Doc" Ford find Gail Calloway before it would be too late?

These were questions that needed urgent and fast answers. It's a big world with a lot of hiding places, but Randy Wayne White takes us through some of them in this fast paced bit of Florida noir that is must reading for the Florida fiction fan!