North of Havana [Hardcover]

Randy Wayne White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 1997

Florida marine biologist Doc Ford reluctantly heads to Havana to aid his ex-hippie friend Tomlinson, who strayed into Cuban waters, only to discover that Tomlinson and his female companion have mysteriously vanished and that he has become caught up in a web of revenge, revolution, and murder.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Randy Wayne White--try saying that three times, fast--had everybody shouting about a new Travis McGee with 1996's Captiva. But White's marine biologist Doc Ford is a much more complicated character than the late, great John D. MacDonald's muscular bounty hunter. For one thing, Ford has a shadowy political past--which explains why he's reluctant to race down to Havana to bail out his chemically-abusive friend Tomlinson when his boat is impounded under suspicious circumstances. "By most definitions it was a nightmare, but to me it was simply a sleeping revisitation of a thing I had done, a thing that I loathed," says Doc--planting the seeds of a revelation about his past and showing off the kind of writing that makes his new book so compulsively readable.

From Library Journal

A few days before Christmas, marine biologist and former CIA operative Marion "Doc" Ford receives a call from a pal whose sailboat has strayed into Cuban waters. The friend needs Ford's help to bribe officials and get back his impounded boat. Complicating his life still further, an impossible love named Dewey has arrived that afternoon. Now Ford must go to Cuba, a dangerous trip because of his clandestine operations there that is made more dangerous by Dewey's insistence on accompanying him. What Ford encounters in Cuba is not simple government graft but a plot to eliminate Castro, and if Ford and his friends are to survive he must risk an alliance with a former Soviet agent, one of a cadre with its own reasons for wanting him dead. This is a fine addition to White's Doc Ford series (e.g., Captiva, Putnam, 1996), crackling with both tension and humor. For most popular collections.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 241 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition edition (March 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399142428
• ISBN-13: 978-0399142420
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Randy Wayne White is the author of sixteen previous Doc Ford novels and four collections of nonfiction. He lives in an old house built on an Indian mound in Pineland, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is Randy Wayne White's best book., March 26, 1999

By 

Jason DeJongh ([e-mail]) (Gainesville, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North of Havana (Doc Ford) (Paperback)

A little less than a year ago I was attending summer classes at the University of Florida and I had some extra time on my hands. I had never been a big reader, but one of my roomates gave me a copy of Sanibel Flats (White's first book) to read. Since then I have read all of the Doc Ford novels and have become a huge fan. North of Havana has become one of my favorite books of all time. I am a born and raised Floridian with a love of fishing. In fact it is only a short boat ride from my house to Sanibel Island. North of Havana captured me from the beginning. I am in awe of the "world in Cuba" so there was a natural attraction to the book. I have also followed Doc Ford's relationship with Dewey Nye through the previous books. In fact I would recomend reading his previous books to fully understand the special relationship between them. I also love the way White brought back Pilar, Doc's former lover, at the end of the book. White has revived me as a dedicated reader and I can not wait for more to come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun, unusual thriller, December 11, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Omaha, Nebraska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North of Havana (Hardcover)

"No good deed goes unpunished." This about sums up the plot of Randy Wayne White's NORTH OF HAVANA, but by itself can't do justice to the story's twists and turns, its unusual characters, and its setting in Castro's decaying Cuba. "Doc" Ford goes to Cuba to spring his old hippy buddy Tomlinson, who (for reasons not immediately clear) sailed too near the island and had his sailboat impounded. "Doc" has good reasons not to go, mostly because of his previous activities in Cuba on behalf of shadowy Federal agencies, but including service as Fidel's Yanqui catcher for an exhibition baseball game (!) during which he had a serious dispute on the mound with "El Pitcher Maximo" which Castro - notorious for nursing grudges - is unlikely to forgive or forget. A complication is the appearance of another friend who needs his help: Dewey, a lesbian athlete on the rebound from a shattered love affair. But he and Dewey, posing as a tourist couple (and with $10,000 US stuffed in a mone

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great read, but not his best, July 16, 2001

By 

D. Smith (Winchester, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: North of Havana (Doc Ford) (Paperback)

I'm a big RWW fan and enjoyed this book as well, but as stated by an earlier reviewer, I thought "North of Havana" lost a little steam midway through. It may have been the fact that Tomlinson, whose eccentricities are normally a source of mild consternation for Doc Ford, are the cause of some major problems, both to Ford and to his female companion. That those character flaws lead indirectly to several deaths makes Tomlinson less quirky and more downright irritating.

Otherwise, an action-focused entry in a great series of novels.