Hard to believe Doc Marion Ford has swum, fished, sailed and
survived his way through twenty-five books. I can't claim
to have read them all yet, but I've caught up with the
unmarried, much travelled marine biologist in Florida and
further afield from time to time. This novel explores the
CARIBBEAN RIM with a look at treasure hunting, shipwrecks
and some rather unpleasant people.
Tamara Constance is a Bahamian dive instructor, who
benefited from a programme to train locals in swimming and
diving. Ford hires her boat, to check out a site with wreck
timbers, but he's not the first. We learn about sailing
towing a magnet to spot anomalies, sudden deep trenches in
the seafloor, plotting GPS points. But the traditional plot
device of a stolen log book containing treasure locations is
still part of the story. Tamara is strong, and nobody's
fool, and she spots that Ford is more than he seems. He's
tracking down a missing professor who ran off with a former
student, Leonard Nickelby and Lydia Johnson, who are either
going to make the find of their lives or to run into the
worst kind of trouble.
Various sharks, land crabs, living side by side with
indigenous people; the warming sea causing coral bleaching,
and washed up ambergris. This tale of long distances between
rocky islands is full of flavour. Doc Ford is on hand to
make sense of it all, plus the archaeologist Nickelby. Be
ready for some raw violence and strong language, in this
unusual thriller that's just typical of Randy Wayne White,
who started his career as a Florida fishing guide. The
CARIBBEAN RIM seems to be somewhere you're far better to go
with a reliable, resourceful guide, than alone. I enjoyed
the read, but I think I'll stick to the tourist spots
rather than risk the high seas. Grab a grouper sandwich and
cold drink, pull up a cane chair, and enjoy the adventure.
Murder, sunken treasure, and pirates both ancient and
modern send Doc Ford on a nightmare quest in this New
York Times bestseller in Randy Wayne White's thrilling
series.
Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends
out of jams occasionally, but he's never faced a situation
like this.
His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks
most of his life, but now he's run afoul of the Florida
Division of Historical Resources. Its director, Leonard
Nickelby, despises amateur archaeologists, which is bad
enough, but now he and his young "assistant" have
disappeared--along with Fitzpatrick's impounded cache of
rare Spanish coins and the list of uncharted wreck sites
Fitz spent decades putting together. Some of Fitz's own
explorations have been a little...dicey, so he can't go to
the authorities. Doc is his only hope.
But greed makes people do terrible things: rob, cheat, even
kill. With stakes this high, there's no way the thieves will
go quietly--and Doc's just put himself in their crosshairs.