Pun Salad

Amazon helpfully points out that I bought this back in July, 2008. So I'm running about 3.5 years behind on my Doc Ford catchup quest... At least I squeezed it in before 2013 ran out.

It's a darn strange book, not at all similar to previous entries in Randy Wayne White's series. But (as I've said before): it's not as if we have a lot of control over what happens in Doc Ford's life. We're just watching it happen.

What happens in this book: Ford is recruited to a secretive mission. The book's narrative gradually reveals details about the recruiter. His wife has perished while on a humanitarian mission to Nicaragua. He's well-known. He's under heavy Secret Service protection. Ford's first task is to spirit him out from under that protection, so that they might travel to Central America and check out the shady circumstance of his spouse's death.

I might as well tell you the spoiler (it's revealed on the back cover of the paperback, so it's not a huge one): Ford's recruiter is an ex-President of the United States, Kal Wilson.

Surprisingly, some reviewers found this scenario far-fetched.

Equally as unconventional: not much happens for more than 200 pages in the middle of the book. Ford, ex-President Wilson, and the ever-present Tomlinson hang around for a darn long time before anything reasonably approaching action occurs.

But, as I said, if White says that's what happened, who are we to doubt him? The climax is filled with major and minor twists, and I would be lying if I didn't keep turning pages to find out what happened.