Off the Chart [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

James W. Hall (Author), Gary Littman (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

A chance encounter with an old flame sets reluctant investigator Thorn on a collision course with some of Florida's most ruthless killers in a heart-stopping story of modern-day piracy from the acclaimed author of Blackwater Sound, hailed by Dennis Lehane as 'the king of Florida noir'. Anne Joy first fled to the Sunshine State to escape a violent past. Now, years later, she slips back into bad company when she gets entangled with Daniel Salbone, a rising figure in the local mob whose men have been terrorising shipping lanes. When Thorn's old connection with Anne comes to light, he is desperate not to be dragged into dangerous waters. But the kidnapping of his best friend's daughter forces him to embark on a hunt that will take him from the deceptive lushness of the Florida Keys to a nightmare climax in one of the most remote and blood-chilling spots in the Caribbean.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hall (Blackwater Sound; Buzz Cut; etc.) once again sweeps the sand, surf and swamps of Key Largo, in a hyperdramatic mystery featuring sensitive tough-guy Thorn and his live-in girlfriend, Alexandra Rafferty. Hall sums up the plot nicely at the beginning of the book: "Lunacy and violence. Pirates, pirates, pirates." Thorn's long-ago fling with a beautiful woman named Anne Joy comes back to haunt him years later when Anne's brother, Vic Joy, a modern-day pirate along the Gulf Coast, decides he needs to add Thorn's five-acre property to his ill-gotten business and real estate empire. Anne and Vic are the damaged products of a dirt-poor Kentucky upbringing overseen by a smalltime dope-dealing father and a deranged mother with an all-consuming passion for pirates. Thorn refuses to sell to Vic, triggering a complicated coercion scheme that eventually includes the kidnapping of the nine-year-old daughter of Thorn's best friend. The local body count builds until Thorn is in an all-out battle against the deranged Vic, with a complement of U.S. helicopters and a small army of cutthroat international pirates. Hall's crisp writing, plus the ticking-clock suspense of the child-in-peril subplot and amusing secondary characters like Alexandra's dotty dad make this an exhilarating addition to the series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* For a confirmed loner, beach bum Thorn has a way of getting entangled in other people's lives--and then entangling them in his defiant encounters with the outside world. This time his attempt to share his life--and his Key Largo stilt house--with Miami forensic photographer Alexandra Rafferty (from Blackwater Sound) and her Alzheimer's-afflicted father is imperiled by Thorn's latest crusade: facing down the psychotic developer (and wanna-be pirate) intent on stealing Thorn's beachfront property. "A tinderbox forever on the verge of conflagration," Thorn doesn't take well to forced incursions on his space. Matters become even more combustible when the pirate psycho commandeers a yacht and takes a prisoner, who happens to be the young daughter of Thorn's best friend, Sugarman. Is it Thorn's hard-ass approach to the world that keeps endangering those he cares about? Like Doc Ford in Randy Wayne White's series (see p.1555), Thorn must come to terms with his volatile nature if he is to right his ship, and again like Ford, he does so by trusting his "blinding resolve to go forward, driven by some secret long-ago animal nodule in his brain." It's those animal nodules, in the brains of Thorn and the always-fascinating villains he pursues, that drive the action in Hall's high-energy series, but there is much more than action here. Hall forces us to consider the striking similarity between his hero and his villains, nodules firing on the same cylinders. Yes, we like to imagine ourselves wearing Thorn's deck shoes, in a full-frontal assault on all those who endanger our world, but Hall, unlike most thriller writers, portrays the collateral damage wreaked when rugged individualists go into overdrive. This remains one of the best series in the genre. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Chivers Sound Library; Unabridged edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792728912
• ISBN-13: 978-0792728917
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,342,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A high octane character rich thriller, February 27, 2004

By 

Larry Gandle (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Off the Chart: A Novel (Hardcover)

Thorne, the hero of so many of James W. Hall's thrillers is once again faced with a difficult situation. An insane "pirate", Vic Joy, wants his land in a prime location on the Florida Keys to build a very large resort. He resorts to kidnapping Thorne's best friend Sugerman's daughter. Thorne tries to use his past relationship with Vic Joy's sister, Anne, to discover where the child is being held. It is a race against time to rescue the child before the insane Joy decides to kill her.
James W. Hall never fails to please with his high octane thrillers rich in characterizations and depiction of the South Florida locale. OFF THE CHART is no exception. There is, however, a certain sense of predictability in the plot. A recurring theme in James W. Hall's books is the maladjusted siblings. This has been used in several prior Hall novels. Names of the villains are very original and memorable whether it is the notorious Butler Jack or the current Vic Joy. Technology has finally caught up with the characters in that contact with the kidnapping victim is via satellite internet connection. The plots of the books by James W. Hall are well planned. It is apparent the author knows where he is taking us and both reader and author have fun on the ride. As with all the thrillers by Jim Hall, this one comes highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhilerating!!!, June 18, 2003

By 

nobizinfla "nobizinfla" (Windermere, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Off the Chart: A Novel (Hardcover)

James W. Hall's "Off the Chart" is a suspenseful, complex tale populated with three-dimensional characters in a vibrant setting.

A modern day high seas pirate with a Mafia background, a violent psycho pirate wannabe, a former Secretary of Navy working covertly for a black helicopter organization converge to alter the life of confirmed loner Thorn's newly idyllic life.

Via deceit and deception the villains coerce and convince Thorn's best friend Sugarman and girl friend Alexandra to abandon him---leaving Thorn to fend for himself versus the land-grabbing pirates.

In the attempt to seize Thorn's valuable five acres of waterfront property, the pirates abduct Sugarman's nine-year-old daughter---introducing a ticking clock subplot that leads to a nightmare confrontation.

The crisply written high octane pacing never slows as the action moves from the Keys to the middle of the ocean to the Central American jungles.

Jim Hall never disappoints---superior in every way.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This one doesn't measure up to the rest, October 14, 2008

By 

Art Tirrell - "The Vitaman Effect" (upstate ny) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Off the Chart: A Novel (Thorn Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Early in this one, still-thorny and always-horny Thorn finds himself trying to explain to Alexandra, his current squeeze, the kiss a waitress named Anne Joy has just planted on his lips. Turns out, Anne and Thorn had a passionate but short-lived fling a while back. She's the sister of the notorious hoodlum Vic Joy, and guess what? We haven't heard the last of her - or her brother.

Don't think for a second Vic Joy hasn't heard about Thorn. He has. Vic's the type who pulls the legs off frogs, and collects the testicles of family enemies. Not the kind of guy you want plotting to bring you down.

It's not long at all before a hoodlum named Marty Messina arrives at Thorn's doorstep in the Florida Keys and offers him 3 million for his property. When Thorn declines to sell, it's the signal for Vic to put into motion a plan designed to change his mind, and fast.

James W. Hall likes to build his stories by jumping from one character's head to another's. The Thorn novels, for example, include a minor character named Sugarman, a private eye who is usually enlisted to help Thorn in some way. At some point in the story, you can expect to find yourself in Sugarman's head as he investigates some bit of the puzzle facing Thorn in the main thread of the story.

Hall is particularly adept at building his villain's characterizations this way, and his stories always feature vivid and believable bad guys.

Vic Joy's plan is simple; he grabs Sugarman's 11 year old daughter and holds her for ransom. The deed to Thorn's property for the girl. Take it or leave it.

This time, though, when the jump to Sugarman's head comes, it ends up lasting too long, and the several segments of the plot involving him and his search for his kidnapped daughter take up way too much of the stage time, while little or nothing is going on with Thorn. It's a major flaw I haven't seen before in this prolific author's work.

In fact, if Thorn hadn't been (conveniently) kidnapped by Vic and dragged along to attend the big convention of pirates at the denouement - the same place (too coincidenatlly) where Sugarman's daughter is being held, he wouldn't even have been in on the big climactic showdown which for the most part fizzled rather than sizzled.

It doesn't feel as if as much energy went into the creation of this novel as has been invested in the others. There are spurts of color, especially when the scene involves Alexandra's demented father, but for the most part Thorn is lifeless. It's almost as if he doesn't give a damn about his own story.

Read the other Thorn novels first, then if you absolutely need another fix, pick up this one.

Art Tirrell is the author of The Secret Ever Keeps.
"simply put, the best underwater scenes I've ever read." reviewer Meg W.