Military Bookshelf: Chills & Thrills for Spring
Military.com - Tom Miller
Mar 18, 2008
Black Widow, by Randy Wayne White. Putnam's, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-399-15456-0
Prolific and bestselling novelist White returns with his fifteenth Doc Ford mystery-thriller (following Hunter's Moon).
Doc Ford, marine biologist and former spy, is working for the government again—this time as a scientist. In an effort to beat terrorists to the punch, he's busy trying to raise poisonous shrimp and lethal jellyfish in his Sanibel Island, Fla., lab. But, he's not happy with his bureaucratic bosses, so he's quick to sign up when there's trouble in paradise. It doesn't hurt that the trouble concerns his goddaughter, Shay Money, who's escaped a checkered past and is on the brink of a happy and prosperous future.
It seems that the 26-year-old Shay took three of her closest friends to an idyllic Caribbean island to decompress before her imminent wedding to a wealthy politician. While there, the young women were drugged and videotaped in a variety of compromising positions with a couple of local Lotharios. Now, the blackmailers want a quarter-million dollars or they'll post the video on the internet. Hello cyber-celebrity; goodbye future husband.
Dropping everything, Doc rushes off to expose the blackmailers and protect his goddaughter. What he finds is an elaborate and extensive operation with a who's who of rich and powerful victims on two continents. And, it's all run by a ruthless psychopath with a green thumb.
Joining up with Sir James Montbard, another former spy—British, superannuated, and eccentric—who lives nearby, Doc risks life and limb to expose the extortionist.
White explores a timely topic—the use of date-rape drugs to exploit young women in corrupt Caribbean venues—with his usual verve in this page-turning entertainment.
Quoting Randy Wayne White
"I don't have an irrational fear of heights, but I do have a healthy fear of falling."
"For some reason, artistic types find sexually ambiguous snobs alluring."
"Evil is seldom original."
"The common criminal is common."
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The Killer's Wife, by Bill Floyd. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 (304p) ISBN 0-312-37339-2
North Carolinian Floyd debuts with this inventive thriller that looks at a serial killer through his wife's eyes.
After a husband is convicted for the ritualistic murders of at least twelve people and sentenced to California's Death Row, his wife changes her name to Leigh Wren and moves with their infant son Hayden across country to Cary, N.C., where she builds a new life for them.
Seven years later, however, Leigh is confronted in the supermarket by the father of one of her husband's victims. The disturbed man accuses Leigh of being her husband's accomplice and threatens to ruin her life.
A few days later, her son is snatched from school, and his abductor kills the boy's teacher and cuts out her eyes—the trademark of Leigh's former husband. But, the husband is still on Death Row in California. Assisted by a husband-and-wife team of private detectives, Leigh sets off on a desperate chase against time to unmask the copycat killer and rescue her son.
Vividly imagined and crisply written, Floyd scores a promising debut with this original thriller.
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Copyright 2008 by Tom Miller
A former history professor, Tom Miller is a novelist and essayist. His most recent novel, Freshman Sensation (2007), is available from the publisher at http://www.ccjournal.com/. His reviews and essays have appeared in numerous books, journals, and newspapers, including The Encyclopedia of Southern History, American History Illustrated, the Chicago Tribune, and the Des Moines Register. He also is a former Army Officer and Vietnam Veteran.
