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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do Not Even Think About Missing This One!!, February 14, 2008
James W. Hall is at the top of my "must read list" and "Hell's Bay" justifies that position. It is the best novel I have read in a long time. Hall's characterizations are amazingly fully developed and believable. However, as always, he stunningly captures the sights, smells, and sounds of the Everglades and the Florida Keys to such an extent that the swamp almost becomes a physical character in the final confrontation and climax.
Hall's loner and iconic hero, Thorn, finally gets a full name and fleshed out identity in this installment. Daniel Oliver Thorn knew nothing of his family tree since his parents died in an auto accident on the way home from the hospital after his birth. Suddenly, John Milligan and his daughter Mona schedule a maiden fishing excursion on a new houseboat owned and outfitted by Thorn's former lover and pal, Rusty Stabler, who has convinced Thorn to serve as guide and first mate.
Thorn is shocked and frozen with conflicting emotions when informed that John is his long lost uncle and Mona his cousin. The man with no history beyond his personal memories suddenly discovers he is a scion of one of the wealthiest families in Florida and an heir to Bates International, a multi faceted and multi layered conglomerate perhaps most infamously known for its strip mining of phosphates in central Florida which has made it a hated entity by citizens and community alike--especially when a cancer cluster is identified in Summerland, site of a large gypsum stack thought to be carcinogenic.
A number of intriguing plot threads are engaged by this meeting between Thorn and members of his family that ultimately intertwine and lead to a suspenseful and violence filled climax deep in the Everglades that reduces its human protagonists to the same primeval state of the swamp itself. The storyline actually splits into two major threads as the so called mothership heads deep into the Everglades on its purported fishing excursion carrying Thorn and his ill fitting and suspiciously unlikable newly found family members. A dangerous stalker appears and soon threatens, then rains chaos on the excursion. Why? Who is the stalker and what is the motivation? How does it tie to Thorn and his newly discovered ancestry? What is the real agenda of his relatives and their sudden decision to take this trip with Thorn?
Simultaneously, Thorn's great friend, Sugarman, heads to Summerland to investigate Thorn's background and the recent drowning death of his 86 year old grandmother, Abigail Bates. Was it murder as declared by Mona Milligan or the accident described in the police report? What is the relationship, if any, of the violence and hatred in Summerland and the attacks on Thorn's fishing expedition? What are the real motivations of Timmy Whelan, Summerland's sheriff, to whom Sugarman is both attracted and conflicted.
Hall's pacing and attention to detail make this an enthralling read as the suspense heightens unbearably toward an explosively primal confrontation where purely survival instinct battles an avenging spirit. Indeed, as mentioned, the isolation and vulnerability of the protagonists in the Everglades who fight for their very survival against man as well as nature raises this book to a special level for this reader. I cannot recommend it more strongly!!!
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Winner from James W. Hall, February 23, 2008
James W. Hall is masterful at creating villains.
It is not just that they never consider the moral consequences of their deeds, carry violence to an art form, create a combination of terror and tension---it is their "nothing to lose attitude" that is most frightening.
The fact that you know these people actually exist is genuinely terrifying. You sense them in real life, and cross the street to stay out of their path.
In Dr. Hall's latest Thorn novel, such a piece of work is Sasha Olson. Her outrage stems from the early death from cancer to her husband and the same disease ravaging her son. She blames it on Bates International who controls a gigantic phosphate strip mining operation in the middle of Florida.
Sasha's initial victim is the Bates International's family matriarch, Abigail Bates. Her preferred macabre method is death by drowning. Immediately before she places her prey under water she asks, "How long can you hold your breath?"
Abigail turns out to be Thorn's grandmother. Thorn's parents were killed in an auto accident shortly after he was born. He never knew about his family tree.
Thorn's uncle and his daughter appear to be clients on a fishing expedition where Thorn acts as a guide.
Sasha is on a mission to wipe out the Bates family. She haunts and hunts the family members deep in the remotest part of the Everglades. The outcome is in doubt until the final chapter.
The characters will hook you just as much as the plot that has as many twists as the Everglades. You just may want to sleep with light on after you experience "Hell's Bay."
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"How long can YOU hold your breath?", April 24, 2008
James W. Hall writes gritty outdoor adventure novels, usually set in Florida near or on the water. Hell's Bay is more of the same, and marks the return of hard-bitten hero Thorn, who signs on to be first mate aboard the first voyage of former lover and female fishing guide Rusty Stabler's new houseboat. The houseboat will act as a base for daily forays deep into virgin fishing grounds.
The first surprise comes when the client, whose name is Milligan, addresses Thorn by his full name, Daniel Oliver Thorn. Nobody knows his name. He's a Conch, and he has only one name; Thorn. Naturally, there are forces at work he does not understand, and soon he will play a major part in a game that began long before he agreed to make the trip with Rusty. A game that began with the question, "How long can you hold your breath?" and ended with the drowning death of one Abigail Bates, 85, principal shareholder and owner of Bates International, a huge multinational conglomerate.
Thorn is a careful man. He sends his detective friend Sugarman to investigate the activities of Bates International, but Abigail Bate's killer, a woman named Sasha, has already learned that the Milligans, who are next in line to succeed at Bates international, have chartered a houseboat to go fishing on Hell's Bay.
Sasha blames Bates for her husband's death from lung cancer, and her teenage son, just accepted to Yale with a full scholarship, is about to die from the same disease.
They have a motto: head of the snake. They know what needs to happen next, and they are prepared and more than capable of making it happen.
When Sugarman learns Bates International mines Gypsum and piles the radioactive residue in 80 million ton, twenty-story stacks 300 acres at their base, and that an elementary school with an astonishingly high student mortality rate not only borders a nearby stack but has been built with cinder blocks made from the waste, he is able to identify the killer and learn that she has already left to attack the charter fishing party.
But will he be able to warn Thorn in time?
Deep in the Everglades, beyond the reach of cell phones, Thorn has learned something too: he is Abigail Bate's nephew, and she has left a controlling interest in Bates International to him.
"How long can you hold your breath?" Sasha asks her next victim during the long, dark, disastrous night that follows, and the story accelerates from there to its slam bang conclusion. Recommended for lovers of outdoor adventure.
Art Tirrell is the author of 2007 adventure novel, " The Secret Ever Keeps" - set on and under Lake Ontario.
"Simply put...the best underwater scenes I've ever read." Meg W - reviewer
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