Product Description

Imagine the worst that can happen. Then imagine again. The stunning new Doc Ford novel by the New York Times–bestselling author.

Winter in New York City: Amid sleet and snow, Doc Ford is at the Explorers Club with his new friend, former (and maybe current) British agent Sir James Montbard, researching a jungle expedition and awaiting the arrival of an attractive U.S. senator with whom Ford has become more than friendly. Her car pulls up, she starts to get out—and the unthinkable happens: an abduction attempt right before Ford’s eyes. Ford engages, managing to save the senator, but the companion in her car is not so lucky. A fourteen- year-old Minnesota boy, in New York as the prize for an essay-writing contest, he is snatched and vanishes—dead, authorities fear, until they receive the kidnappers’ ultimatum.

Ford goes on the hunt, an odyssey that brings him first to Long Island, then to Florida, but if what happened before was unthinkable, it’s nothing compared with what he discovers. The boy’s captors have a definite agenda, and to make sure he isn’t rescued before their thirty-six-hour deadline is up, they’ve put him someplace they’re sure no one will find him: they’ve buried him alive.

But there’s something about the boy his captors do not know. He has a past, as do Doc Ford and many of the other key players in these extraordinary events. And before those thirty-six hours are over, all those pasts will catch up to the present— with catastrophic results.

Randy Wayne White’s novels have always won praise for their remarkable imagination, intrigue, and some of the best characters in suspense fiction. Nothing, however, will prepare his readers for the remarkable twists and revelations of Dead Silence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12400 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780399155406
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller White's high-octane 16th thriller to feature Marion Doc Ford (after Black Widow) opens with a splash as Ford deep-sixes serial rapist Bern Heller into the ocean a mile off Sanibel Island, Fla. Killing Heller is a sidebar to Doc's primary mission: rescuing Will Chaser, a 14-year-old Indian boy from Oklahoma, from two Cuban psychopaths who in a bungled kidnapping attempt wound up with Will instead of their intended target, a U.S. senator. Will is the real star of the show—a tough, resourceful juvenile delinquent with rodeo skills and a propensity for rage that make him a pretty even match for the two demonic kidnappers, who are demanding valuable information found in the belongings of the now-deceased Fidel Castro. Despite some confusing backstory and an unnecessarily complicated plot—White drags in many of Doc's sidekicks from earlier books for not much apparent reason—the action roars along as Doc does what Doc does best: kick butt. Author tour. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Retirement didn’t sit well with Doc Ford, White’s marine biologist and black-ops agent. Doc’s back in the game now but choosing his own projects, including a spot of vigilante settling up with the serial rapist who killed one of the fishing guides from Dinkin’s Bay Marina, Sanibel Island, Doc’s beloved home. With the local cops on his tail, Doc hops a plane for New York, there to rendezvous with a fetching U.S. senator who finds the biologist’s horned-rim glasses and broad shoulders a very appealing combination. Naturally, things happen. Ford witnesses the senator’s attempted kidnapping and manages to keep her out of harm’s way, but another person riding in the limo, a 14-year-old Native American boy, is snatched instead. It’s all part of a scheme by some rogue Cubans to recover a cache of Castro’s private papers. Soon enough the boy has been buried alive (with an air vent providing a rapidly diminishing air supply), and Ford and best-buddy Tomlinson, who hails from Long Island, are on the trail. The action, typical for White, is relentless, and the tension builds agonizingly (nothing like burying somebody alive to ratchet up the suspense). But the real interest here is the glimpse White provides of Tomlinson’s background (rich kid with seriously bent kinfolk). This may not be the tightest or most entertaining novel in the series, but longtime fans—of whom there are many—have been wanting to hear more of hippie-dippy Tomlinson’s backstory for years, and they’ll be overjoyed to get their wish. --Bill Ott

Review
“Like Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald at their best, White draws readers into his world with characters you’d pay just to hang out with and then hooks us with straight-ahead action. It’s an old-school combination, but it still works just fine.”
—Booklist

Customer Reviews

Not good
I own all Randy's books and am a HUGE fan. A new RWW book is like Christmas to me. This one is not good. It doesn't even read like a book of his. No humor whatsoever and it doesn't flow well for me. No fun characters we all know and love, no stilt house, no time on the water, no historical tidbits about Florida, etc, etc.
I'll continue to buy his books but lately, I've been disappointed more often than not.

So long, Doc
The recent Doc Ford books are ok, but nothing special. His books involving Florida, the ocean, and fish and credible bad guys (as opposed to larger-than-life Bond-type villains) were better. The older books had a bit of back-story giving Doc Ford a bit of mystery and, perhaps, a reason for his world weariness, but that's all and it was enough. He made his living selling specimen fish to schools. Lately, fish, the sea, Dinkins Cove, Captiva Island and Florida are barely mentioned. Suddenly he is a secret agent again with a renewed license to kill. I'm disappointed. I knew he was smart enough to take care of sharks. I'm sorry that he wasn't smart enough to keep from jumping one. So long, Doc.

Disappointing
I have been a fan of Randy Wayne White since his non-fiction collection _Batfishing in the Rainforest_, and have been an avid reader of his Doc Ford series since its first novel _Sanibel Flats_ was published in the early 1990's. Therefore it is with a heavy heart that I give _Dead Silence_ 2 stars.

Long gone are the diatribes against developers, snow-birds, con-men and crooks that lured me to the series. The banter between trippy, hippie Tomlinson, a perennial favorite and the more serious, scientific Ford, once the highlight of the story now feels like a long married couple going through the motions. The last few books by White have fallen farther and farther afield, as Ford is pulled to more exotic locations in Latin America, the plot lines getting thinner and thinner, the action more fantastic (as in fantasy), the romantic laisons more unbelievable.

In _Dead Silence_, Ford interrupts the kidnapping of a United States Senator, who instead take a teen-ager visiting New York having won an essay contest. The story becomes increasingly bizzare, as threads of Tomlinson's wealthy family in the Hamptons intersect with Ford's dark past as a covert operator. The action is tense, the kidnapped boy buried alive as Ford is literally engaged in a race against time - if the ransom demands of the kidnappers are not met, the kidnapped boy will suffocate. As an added plot twist, White imagines a Cuba following the death of Castro, his secret files (and secret wealth collected over the last 40 years of his reign) are the bartering chips with which the Senator, Ford and the kidnappers haggle over. Add references to secret fraternities at Yale and you have a sense of just how far over the top (and how far astray from where the series began) White has come. To be fair, White's writing is taut - the action sequences are well written, and the struggle Ford has with getting in touch with his "right brain" is good - but this Doc Ford is a shadow of who he once was.

As an earlier reviewer remarked, perhaps Ford is a burnt-out hero. I won't go that far, as I continue to hope that the character and stories will be salvaged. I wonder if White's "Randy Striker" persona isn't bleeding into the writing of the Ford series - I hope not. While I will continue to read White's Doc Ford books, I can't recommend this one to any but the die-hard fan.