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A review of Twelve Mile Limit

by Randy Wayne White

A mysterious disappearance, a reluctant hero, a slice of Florida

Reviewed by: Frances O. Thomas
About Frances O. Thomas

Twelve Mile Limit Twelve Mile Limit by Randy Wayne White is not a book I should like. When I read fiction at all, I favor protagonists who are ladylike creatures living in Edwardian England, not kick butt former secret operatives like Marion Ford, Ph. D. Besides, I am a humanities gal all the way. What do I care about the daily life of a marine biologist? And just the thought of drug trafficking, or worse, in Colombia gives me a squirmy feeling.

Yet here I am, devouring White's ninth Doc Ford novel. As in the previous eight books, Ford putters around his lab, checking the specimens he collects from the waters surrounding Sanibel as he philosophizes with his metaphysical best bud, Tomlinson. Ford is all science and logic until a crisis demands his metamorphosis from a professor with coke bottle glasses into a reluctant but chillingly efficient hero. His quiet veneer is peeled back to show the primal side he tries so hard to keep pushed down.

This time around, the springboard is the disappearance of another of Ford's friends, a pleasant, mousy woman named Janet Mueller who reinvented herself in order to survive a personal tragedy. Sordid rumors hinting at drug deals gone bad begin to circulate, and Ford takes steps to salvage his friend's reputation. While White draws on a similar true story of missing divers as the basis of his plot, the cast of characters are all of his own invention. It is the characterization, I think, that draws me into Doc's world again and again.

The fictional citizens of Dinkins Bay are folks I recognize. White chronicles their failings and foibles with small, telling details. He understands these people. His alter ego, Doc Ford, sees their imperfections, but loves them anyway. In fact, he loves them because of, not in spite of, those imperfections. Their stories do not always end happily ever after, but they, like Ford himself, are ultimately decent people who show courage in the face of adversity.

Twelve Mile Limit is not a gentle book. All of the Doc Ford novels contain enough action to satisfy any Hollywood producer. The villains are as sinister as any ever encountered by James Bond. But after the dust settles and the high tech weaponry is put away until the next time, Ford resumes his place in the colorful community of Dinkins Bay where, as Janet says, "Irony and love are the only things that separate us from the beasts."

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Copyright © by Frances O. Thomas, 2002

Reviewed by Frances O. Thomas :
-- Twelve Mile Limit - by Randy Wayne White
-- What Color is Your Parachute 2003 - by Richard Bolles
-- Fish! Tales - by Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D., John Christensen, and Harry Paul, with Phillip Strand
-- Finding Flow - by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi









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