Customer Reviews

Dark Light (Doc Ford)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This tale had lots of things Florida is famous for like hurricanes and sunken treasure.

I live in Florida and this book brought back lots of memories of Hurricane Charley. RWW accurately describes dealing with the government and insurance companies after a hurricane.

I'd never thought much about WWII and the possibility of shipwrecks from the era. This book kept my interest with its interesting plot.

The bad guy, Bern Heller, was so evil I had to take breaks after reading about him. I read on RWW's website, [...], that he will be in his newest novel.

Doc Ford fans and all people who love Florida will enjoy this book.

Wow - I was surprised at the negative reactions from some reviewers, but I understand where they are coming from. In _Dark Light_ White takes readers in another direction than from the previous 2 or 3 installments of his series. However I found the change refreshing and much more reminiscent of the earlier books in the series.

Rather than concentrating on Doc's dark, violent past or the looming conflict between his former covert life and his friendship with aging hippie Tomlinson, _Dark Light_ focuses on lost treasure... a metaphor not only for the diamond encrusted Nazi death's head found in a wreck after a hurricane, but also for the development and changes to the Florida the author loves so dearly.

White does a tremendous job of weaving a story of sunken Nazi treasure, devious entrepeneurs and hints at a ghost story with the the familiar characters from Dinkin's Bay. For readers not familiar with the series, _Dark Light_ wouldn't be my recommendation to be introduced to the characters - but I do strongly recommend it, even over the last few books written in the series.

I have read nearly all of the Doc Ford novels, the only exceptions being North of Havanna and The Mangrove Coast.
"Dark Light" takes place in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane. And it is so bad that I wondered if Mr. White hired a ghost writer to help him meet his deadline during the aftermath of the real-life hurricane.
There seems to be no real dominant plot, in fact, the book seems to jump wildly from idea to event to extremely vague flashback so often that it makes very little sense at all.

The Doc/Tomlinson death contract issue that ended Tampa Burn, and cropped back up in Dead of Night with a seemingly grudging resolution, is back on the table.
In a number of very vague and confusing flashbacks during Dark Light, one is led to believe that Doc did "something" before the hurricane hit that got Tomlinson's neck off the chopping block. What that "something" exactly was, and whether or not it is a final solution is never discussed.

The book delves so heavily into supernatural mumbo jumbo, most of which Doc is the focus, that you will find yourself wondering, Which one of you is Tomlinson again?

The ending makes very little sense, and leaves many bizarre unanswered questions.
The tertiary characters dominate the story, and are poorly written to the point of being charicatures. Also, the hurricane-related destruction of Dinkins Bay and deaths/tragedies involving long time residents are heartbreaking. There are also a number of distressing continuity errors. Tomlinsons former lover, and mother of their daughter is referred to as his "ex-wife" despite the fact that they were never married.
Tucker Gattrel's long time residence, and Sally Carmel's hometown of Mango FL is referred to as "Coconut," and there are more typographical errors than I can count.

Sorry to all the die-hard fans out there, but it seems that Mr. White has grown tired of Doc and Dinkin's Bay. It would not surprise me if this is the last Doc Ford novel. However, if there is another, I expect it to contain:
1. The murder of Tomlinson
2. The subsequent berserker rage on Doc's part, and
3. The borderline-criminal destruction of one of the finest crime series I have ever read.

I only hope that if Mr. White continues to make such a half-hearted effort, that he will let the series die with the dignity that it deserves.

By the time I finished "Dark Light," I was so disappointed that I was near tears. If I could "unread" it, I would. I wish that I could give it 0 stars, but Amazon makes you give at least one.

In what may be an emotional appeal to a certain part of the Doc Ford readership, Randy lets our hero take a beating from a bully. Personally I prefer him to win every fight, but as a plot device, the butt-whipping did serve to keep me reading, if for nothing else, to see if Ford gets a chance to even the score.

Similar to his last book (Dead of Night), I thought Dark Light started off slow, which is unfortunate because if you are a first time RWW reader you might give up on the book. Don't! Reading a new Doc Ford novel is like hearing from an old friend; sometimes the news is good, sometime the news is not so good, but communications is the key to maintaining the friendship!

I believe Randy makes liberal use of his "interesting" friends and close associates in developing some of the characters of his books. Dark Light is no exception. Check out Randy's personal website after reading Dark Light and see if you don't recognize some of the pictures of folks that could have inspired the most recent character/s.

Randy's got a great imagination and is a gifted storyteller. His style of writing is smooth and conversational. His description of the local Florida scenery and book setting is as good as any you will read elsewhere, that's because he writes about the places where he lives and loves, and you can tell. If you have enjoyed Doc Ford in past novels then I am recommending Dark Light now. There are other Doc Ford novels I have enjoyed more or that really stand out, but this book is a good addition to the series and a nice little mystery for Ford to solve, along with a sweet but sort of weird romance. When the story ends, it leaves you anxious for more, which is as it should be.

Uber mystery writer Randy Wayne White has been on a roll with his popular Doc Ford novels. He raises the bar even higher with Dark Light, the thirteenth in this series.

White fans know unstoppable hero Doc Ford well. He's a former covert ops agent, now a marine biologist. Following in the wake of a raging hurricane that roared across western Florida, Doc is strolling the ocean floor that has been pummeled and torn by the devastating storm. Familiar reefs and wrecks have been covered over and unknown ones revealed. Doc and his friends discover some surprising objects, such as a brooch shaped like a death's head with a swastika in the center - a grim reminder of World War II.

There are other mysterious finds amid the wreckage of Dark Light, a boat that sank into the deep during the hurricane of 1944. Once Doc meets a recluse, a woman living in a beach front mansion his discoveries begin to make sense as she connects these objects to the German High Command. She also spins a tale of a long lost love and pleads with Doc to salvage the boat.

He agrees, but soon finds that he's not the only one who wants access to the wreckage - there are others who will kill to retrieve what has lain at the bottom of the sea.

Actor Henry Strozier gives an authoritative, suspenseful reading to this tale of yesterday and today. He's a veteran performer of stage and screen who can chill with a modulation of his voice.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

Setting and Characters are excellent as usual in the Doc Ford series but the plot in this one gets a bit tangled, and ultimately less than satisfying. Still the trips with Doc Ford and Tomlinson are always worthwhile and enjoyable ones ... would recommend.

Where to start? I love the Sanibel/Doc Ford stories. I love Sanibel. I go back there every year. This land-locked Floridian wallows in Florida myth, legend and just stories about redneck cow chasers, crooks, all things water and any story by Randy White. BUT, I was confused a lot by this story. It just seemed a bit of a rip off. It just didn't seem honest somehow and I don't even know if that makes sense. Maybe, it isn't honesty, maybe it was pressure to get another novel done, maybe it's an honest effort to do something different (God knows, I get that)but it hopped all over and just wasn't, well, coherent most of the time. I still await the next no matter what. I trust.

This time around Doc Ford has a new problem. He's picking up the pieces after the hurricane devastated Florida, and one of his friends (a local fisherman and guide) is in trouble and has lost his boat to an unscrupulous marina owner. He's also met Tomlinson's new girlfriend, and since she is nothing like the rest of the Buddhist monk's women, Ford is intrigued. She's much older, and more sophisticated, and at times you wonder if she's a ghost of some sort. She does things like wander down to the beach during tropical storms. Once she gets introduced to Ford, she hires him and his friends to dive on and recover a wreck that's off the coast, and which she believes contains the bodies of several of her relatives.

The marina owner is really the villain here. The difficulty, such as it is, is that he's not much of a villain, and so you know Ford can handle him, despite the fact that initially he beats up Ford pretty good in one of the opening sequences in the book. White works the plot carefully, and the characters are interesting, but things do take a while to get anywhere, and it's not that suspenseful.

I first discovered White on a trip to Sanibel a dozen years ago while vacationing with my sons and families. At Jerry's, where one must shop for groceries (or Bailey's), I found my first White book, either Sanibel Flats or Captiva. As a tourist, I saw the usual things, but I was captivated by the islands and wanted to know about things outside the "beaten path."

White uses his considerable knowledge of southwest FL along with his lyrical and informative prose, to say nothing of his intricate plots and well-developed characters. I've read all of his books as fast as I could--he draws the reader into the background of the REAL islands, and I learned much I wouldn't have by just going to Bubble Room because grandkids when small, celebrated birthdays there.

I cannot praise White's historical/mystery novels nor his laudable writing ability enough. His words flow, be it description, conversation, or interesting and well-developed characters. I'd love to meet Doc Ford or Tomlinson, especially. I know they are probably composites, but I'll bet Randy Wayne White knows people similar to them if not them.

Dark Light is no exception; it is one of his best, with an intricate, sometimes mystical bent. I've met a few similar to Chestra, and I particularly like that her mystery is left hanging to some extent. Maybe she'll appear in another book. The international connection to WWII is also evocative to me since my father died in the Battle of the Bulge when I was barely four. That topic and the boat and its artifacts and the subterfuge among the characters held my interest through a night. I really didn't know there were German U-boats off the coast of FL during WWII.

I was a little surprised when I got to this page on amazon and found that this book was getting lambasted by so many fans of Doc Ford. To tell you the truth I could understand why my fellow reviewers here were knocking the book around. It seems like a common complaint is that nothing really happens here, and not much does. I dont mind this at all, because Randy White's writing really takes off here and is so well done that he pulls the story along with understated prose in a refreshing manner.

At times I grew a little frustrated with White, mainly because he went overboard quite often with his descriptions and you often find yourself leafing through five or six pages of story that are re-hashing earlier thoughts or that could have been edited out without being missed. However, I would gladly read these pages and have such a strong story presented instead of being tortured once again with a Clive Cussler action packed comic.

A few things that kind of didn't resonate with me were that one of the main characters might have been a ghost. Your not sure from early on what is going on with this person, and White doesn't really go into great detail. I kind of like this in that it isn't neatly resolved. Also, the bad guy is so evil that it was a little hard to swallow. I don't think anyone ever is quite so bad. Apart from a few sentences this person is never humanized. White writes that this person had a middling average life before coming to Florida and the rest is all this persons evil deeds from the past...

I cant wait to delve into the other eleven Doc Ford books and would so far suggest this series to fans of the thriller genre.