Night Moves

January 14, 2013
The enduring puzzle of Flight 19—five Navy torpedo bombers that disappeared on a training flight on December 5, 1945, off the Florida coast—propels bestseller White’s captivating 20th Doc Ford novel (after 2012’s Chasing Midnight). Seaplane pilot Dan Futch thinks the answer to Flight 19’s fate may lie in an unusual Everglades location near some Indian mounds and a mysterious field of human bones. Fortunately, before Futch takes off with Ford and Ford’s sidekick, Tomlinson, Futch notices that someone has sabotaged his plane. But who was the intended target? Meanwhile, back home in Dinkin’s Bay, Ford must contend with a host of shady characters, including a putative film maker, a skilled assassin, and a Haitian drug dealer. “The fact that unexplained elements are noted within a similar time frame while in the field does not guarantee those elements are linked or even significant,” Ford muses, but his survival may depend on figuring out those possible links in this intriguing installment. Agent: Esther Newberg, International Creative Management.

Entrust a top-notch narrator with the clichéd thriller NIGHT MOVES, and the result is better than the print book. This is Randy Wayne White's twentieth entry in the popular Doc Ford series, and, sadly, it's not his best. The characters and dialogue are not believable. The many plots include drugs, organized crime, lost planes from WWII, an assassin, a dog, and a love story. The saving grace is George Guidall's narration. The man could sound calm in a Florida hurricane, and his steady performance adds a touch of credibility to a way-over-the-top tale. Doc Ford fans can do better than this book; fans of George Guidall, through no fault of his, are advised to make another selection from among the 900-plus novels he has narrated. G.S.D. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine