Dead Silence (Doc Ford Series #16)

by Randy Wayne White

Overview

So terrifying it'll leave readers breathless...

When a Minnesota teen is kidnapped, Doc Ford is given an unthinkable ultimatum, and only 36 hours to act on it. But there's something unusual about the boy that his captors don't even know, twisting this deadly game out of control in ways no one can imagine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425233306
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/23/2010
Series:	Doc Ford Series , #16
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	192,231
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Randy Wayne White is the author of seventeen previous Doc Ford novels and four collections of nonfiction. He lives in an old house built on an Indian mound in Pineland, Florida.

Editorial Reviews

Award-winning veteran narrator George Guidall gives a masterful performance of White's latest Doc Ford suspense thriller, creating well-drawn characters, including a grizzled ex-wrestler, two Cuban kidnappers, a teenage boy, a snobby Hamptons millionaire and Ford's hippie colleague. The scenes in which Ford painstakingly pieces together clues and provides backstory tend to drag a bit, but the action sequences are gripping and nail-bitingly suspenseful. Mystery fans are well advised to snatch this one up. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 19). (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

Doc Ford, marine biologist-cum-black-ops specialist, must disinter some ugly buried secrets along with a kidnap victim who's been buried alive. Unlucky Will Chaser, 14, wins an essay-writing contest that puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time. His woes begin with a conspiracy in Havana to obtain the newly surfaced "Castro File." Now in U.S. custody, the file is full of inflammable secrets, making it highly attractive to big-time geopolitical extortionists. Chief among these are Hump and Farfel, a pair of bottom feeders who've decided that an effective way to exert pressure on the United States would be to kidnap a certain female senator, put her underground and give the Government 36 hours to come up with the goods. As Will rides in Senator Hayes's limo as part of his contest prize, the ill-intentioned cabal prepares for the snatch. Doc Ford, who just happens to be in New York waiting on his latest spook assignment (Black Widow, 2008, etc.), would be exactly in position to rescue the senator and foil the kidnappers if they didn't decide that young Will qualifies as a workable surrogate. So Doc instantly goes instead into pursuit mode, beginning a frantic chase that will take him to those dark and desperate places that only a man with the Bond-like W designation ("sanctioned by the Executive Branch to use lethal force" worldwide) can handle with aplomb. Doc's 16th suffers from subplot glut, but his fans are inured to that by now.

Kirkus Reviews

A ransom of the late Fidel Castro's secret cache of intelligence files and collectibles drives DEAD SILENCE, the sixteenth in the Doc Ford series. Pace is key to a thriller, and a mistakenly kidnapped a 14-year-old Native American boy from Oklahoma, Will Chaser, forces Ford to put the pedal to the metal before the boy's underground prison becomes his grave. White pours on the pressure, and narrator George Guidall matches each plot twist with just the right amount of gravitas, nuance, and aplomb. The story is impossible to listen to without gritting your teeth and crossing your fingers for the indefatigable Doc Ford and the spunky Will Chaser. R.O. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2009 - AudioFile