Pun Salad

This is my twentieth Doc Ford book. I've already bought number 21, and I'll get around to it. I'm not sure I'll continue beyond that, it's getting pretty tedious. All respect to the author, Randy Wayne White. He's certainly found a niche, and he's writing his books the way he wants, more power to him. But I'm losing interest.

This one starts out well. Doc and his permanently drug-addled buddy Tomlinson team up with pilot Dan Futch to solve a real life mystery, the fate of Flight 19, five US Navy torpedo bombers that flew out of Fort Lauderdale in 1945 on a routine training mission. Is it possible they got really lost and crashed in the remote Everglades? They pile into Futch's plane to check it out.

Unfortunately, Futch's plane has been sabotaged, and they are nearly killed. Somebody's trying to kill … one of them, or maybe some combination of them. There is no shortage of suspects: Ford, of course, has any number of enemies that might have tracked him down. Tomlinson has been contending with a Haitian drug dealer, and he's also balling the estranged hot-to-trot wife of a zillionaire (who also has an in-law with violent tendencies). And Futch has problems with … I forget who his antagonists are, sorry.

And also appearing in Doc's marina is a mysterious, suave, Brazilian hit man. Is he after Doc? Or someone else?

Oh, and Doc gets a dog. And has woman problems, as usual.

So it's a complex story, and after that promising beginning, it just kind of meanders and bumbles around until it finally ends.