Twelve Mile Limit (Doc Ford) [Hardcover]

Randy Wayne White (Author)

Book Description

Series: Doc Ford | Publication Date: May 30, 2002

Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford stories continue to grow in audience and acclaim-"We'll always drop anything to read a new White novel, and be glad we did" (The Denver Post)-but in Twelve Mile Limit, he has written his most powerful novel of all.

On a Friday in early November, four people head out from the west coast of Florida to dive a deep-water wreck fifty-six miles offshore. Two days later, one of them is found alive, standing atop a 160-foot light tower in the Gulf of Mexico, naked and waving her wetsuit. But the other three appear to have been swept off the edge of the earth. One diver is Ford's friend, Janet Mueller.

It is then that the rumors begin-whispers of everything from fraud to smuggling to murder. To clear Janet's name, Ford knows that he must discover what really happened that night, way out on the Gulf Stream. The answer that he eventually does find is something both less and much more than the whispers, the result of a quest that will take him halfway around the world and very nearly kill him. It is a truth that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Filled with passion, rich atmosphere, and some of the best suspense characters anywhere in fiction, Twelve Mile Limit is a brilliant piece of storytelling.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of the Florida Gulf Coast marine biologist Doc Ford, White's swashbuckling Travis McGee-esque hero, will applaud this ninth Ford suspense novel (after Shark River), though the literati will likely complain that White continues to fall just short of his near-mythic forerunner, genius storyteller John D. McDonald. In this latest tale, based on a real-life 1994 incident, a boat of scuba divers sinks at a dive site off of Marco Island. When a woman who works in his lab turns up among the missing, Doc jumps into the investigation (though not before he takes time out for an amiable menage-a-trois with two local sirens). The accident's apparent lone survivor, a sexy redheaded Sarasota attorney who swam four miles to the safety of a beacon buoy, confides to Doc that she saw her three companions taken aboard a foul-smelling shrimp boat. Ex-covert agent Doc calls on highly placed government pals to retrieve photos from a surveillance satellite, and the high-resolution images not only confirm the rescue but identify the boat owners as having a history of running drugs and smuggling illegal aliens. Accompanied by the dazzling survivor, Doc tracks the villains to Cartagena, Colombia, where he mounts an operation to free the divers, whom they suspect are about to be sold into prostitution. While this isn't the strongest of the Doc Ford escapades there's some sloppy plotting and gimmicky narrative twists it's plenty entertaining, and White's ironic touches will have fans shouting "encore."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

"We like small, brave people who find small, brave ways to endure and achieve." So says Doc Ford, marine biologist, about his fellow boat people at Dinkin's Bay Marina on Sanibel Island. Ford himself is plenty brave but only wishes he was small. In fact, he's a former dirty-tricks expert for the CIA who gamely tries to live a quiet life. This time the trouble comes when one of his marina pals is lost at sea during a diving trip off the Florida's Gulf Coast. With the help of the sole survivor, Ford attempts to learn what really happened after the divers' boat went down. To get the answers he needs, Ford must return to Colombia, scene of his former CIA dirty doings. White sticks closely to formula in this series: a small, brave person gets in trouble, and Ford, reluctantly shrugging off his Clark Kent disguise, does whatever it takes to rescue the imperiled soul, realizing in the process that violence still attracts him. Formula, yes, but White enlivens it with crisp action, thoughtful reflections on human relations, and some of the best writing about the sea by anyone in or out of the crime-fiction genre. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition edition (May 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399148736
• ISBN-13: 978-0399148736
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,633 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

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic work of suspense, June 8, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Twelve Mile Limit (Doc Ford) (Hardcover)

Dr. Marion Ford lives and works on Sanibel Island near Dinkin's Bay. His business Sanibel Biological Supply provides fresh or preserved specimens to schools and labs nationwide. His assistant and close friend Janet Mueller is reported lost at sea when their diving boat capsizes so it only natural that Doc and the people who live on or near the bay launch a full scale search that is coordinated with the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard picked up only one of the four people who got separated from the group the night of the dive. After she recovers, she comes to Dinkin's Bay to tell her version of the events that happened that night. She informs Doc that she saw a boat that stopped as if it was picking up survivors. Tapping his resources in the intelligence community, Doc finds proof positive that a ship operating on the dark side of the law picked up Janet and a companion. Now the hunt is on and Doc won't rest until he finds them and brings them home.

Randy Wayne White has written a fantastic work of suspense. The hero has previously, been portrayed as an enigma but in TWELVE MILE LIMIT the audience learns a bit more about Doc's deep and murky past. Readers will come to understand why the foot soldiers in the intelligence community have a different view of humanity than the rest of the world and act accordingly. With the humanization of his hero, Mr. White delivers a superior book, one that those who have followed this absorbing series will thoroughly enjoy.

Harriet Klausner

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't start this book near bedtime!, June 5, 2002

By 

Susan Williams (Haddonfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twelve Mile Limit (Doc Ford) (Hardcover)

Apparently Randy Wayne White is incapable of writing a bad book, richly demonstrated by the arrival of Twelve Mile Limit. White is a licensed boat captain with thirteen years experience as a fishing guide, and it shows; only someone with an intimate knowledge and love of the water could have penned this compelling story. Based on a true event, Twelve Mile Limit opens with the dramatic rescue by helicopter of Amelia Gardener, the only known survivor of a disastrous diving expedition. Her three companions from the ill-fated excursion to explore an offshore diving wreck disappear without a trace when their boat sinks, despite the fact that all of them were wearing inflated life vests over wet suits. Among the missing is Janet Mueller, Doc Ford's friend who assists him with his marine specimens business. The close-knit Dinkin's Bay Marina family joins the Coast Guard in an exhaustive, ultimately futile search. When dark rumors begin to circulate, Doc agrees to assist Amelia in her efforts to clear her missing friends' names. Using resources from his shadowy, clandestine past as a secret government operative, Ford uncovers a chilling trail which leads him into a harrowing rescue attempt in the dangerous jungles of Colombia.
White's trademark use of brilliant descriptions of the waters off south Florida, and the vivid picture he creates of Colombia reflect his personal passion for these places. This book stands alone as a powerful adventure, as the reader experiences the chilling isolation of being lost and adrift in a windswept sea on a black, moonless night, and a terror-ridden descent into the hellish Colombian jungles infested with unimaginable dangers. But readers who have followed Doc Ford's adventures (this is the ninth in this popular series) are rewarded with a deepening knowledge of the searing past which haunts Doc. A wonderful summer read-or any time of the year-this book should come attached with a warning notice of the powerfully addictive effects of White's writing. Read one, and you will begin frantically searching out all of his other titles. It's worth it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Doc Ford Novel!, July 6, 2002

By 

Juan K (Montego Bay, Jamaica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twelve Mile Limit (Doc Ford) (Hardcover)

This latest Doc Ford novel is exceptional. It combines a lost at sea survival story with a action packed adventure in Columbia. The book is a lot like the earlier novels like Captiva, Sannibel Flats and North of Havana where Ford is relives his past occupation with the nsa. For those readers who where skeptical about the changes in Ford's character plus a new character named Ransom in the book Shark River, you will see in this latest novel the strength of White's writing ability. For example, Ford's image in Shark River changed from a tall baseball type player to a burly wrestler. In Twelve Mile Limit Ford throws some wrestling moves on a smart mouthed movie star and this was definately entertaining. Ransom also fits in well with the marina comunity so for all you Doc Ford readers out there I recommend this book.