`Deep Shadow` is heart-stopping thriller

‘Deep Shadow’ is a fast-paced thriller that`s one of the best Doc Ford novels.

London: Two black-hearted murderers on the run from the police are hiding out in a mangrove swamp that surrounds a deep, teardrop-shaped lake in central Florida.Doc Ford and his three friends know nothing of this as they prepare to dive the lake to salvage a crashed cargo plane. Doc`s septuagenarian friend Arlis Futch, who discovered the wreck, is convinced it will make them rich.

The plane, he believes, is the one that vanished a half-century ago on a flight from Havana as Fidel Castro`s army approached the city. The plane was carrying gold bars and coins that the country`s deposed despot, Fulgencio Batista, had looted from Cuba`s national treasury. Doc is skeptical, even when Arlis displays a couple of gold Cuban coins he found at the lake. But Doc is always up for an adventure. So is his free-spirited friend, Tomlinson. With them comes Will Chaser, a courageous, intuitive, 16-year-old Cherokee Indian boy Doc met on his last adventure, "Dead Silence." On a bright, February day, Doc, Tomlinson and Will don scuba gear and dive into the lake while Arlis remains on the shore, guarding their equipment. As the divers explore the lake, two disasters strike: An unstable, underwater limestone formation crumbles, trapping Tomlinson and Will. When Doc surfaces and heads for the truck to call for help, he is captured at gunpoint by the two murderers, who have already taken Arlis prisoner. To the killers, who had robbed a farmhouse a few days earlier, murdering four people including two children, fifty-something Doc looks harmless. But readers of Randy Wayne White`s 16 previous Doc Ford adventures know the bookish marine biologist is also a retired intelligence agent, a man who is both resourceful and capable of violence. Doc knows that his buried friends, if they`re still alive, are running out of air. The killers aren`t about to let him call for help, so he needs to get back into the lake to dig them out himself. He strikes a bargain with the killers, showing them a couple of gold coins and promising them riches if they let him save his friends. This is the premise of ‘Deep Shadow,’ a heart-stopping, fast-paced thriller that`s one of the best Doc Ford novels yet. White tells the story by frequently switching viewpoints from the killers to Ford to his trapped friends and back again. About half of the story unfolds underwater. The story is written in White`s crisp, muscular style. The characters are well-drawn, especially the villains, the manipulative King and the dumb, bloodthirsty Perry. White injects a harrowing complication into this already suspenseful story. Escaped exotic pet iguanas, monkeys, parrots, even pythons have become a scourge in Florida, breeding in the wild and preying on native fauna. So Ford isn`t that surprised when he and the killers hear, and occasionally catch glimpses of, something exotic lurking in and along the shores of the lake as night falls. But the mysterious creatures turn out to be something more dangerous than mere pythons; something even more menacing than the well-armed killers. As the story races to its conclusion, the reader gradually learns that the creatures are huge, fast, venomous and hunt in packs. Ford, his friends and the killers are what they want for dinner. Bureau Report