In Dead Silence
,* Randy Wayne White's protagonist, Doc Ford, prevents a Senator from being kidnapped and then is hired by her to find the boy taken in her place. In the world of the novel, Fidel Castro has died, and the U.S. has taken custody of his documents, possessions, and files. Various parties, including Doc himself as well as the kidnappers, have a strong interest in those files. The action vacillates between Ford's native Florida and the Hamptons, an alien environment but one that White handles well.The kidnapped boy is a tough, gutsy figure, although his connection to Ford is a bit too coincidental to be believable. An entertaining read, but not one for those new to Doc Ford and his world.*No relation to the killer clown movie of the same name, which I also own.
is a sort-of-noir novel with the stereotypical wisecracking, commitment-phobic narrator, who is a reasonably likable but not very bright private investigator. I figured out a major plot point about 100 pages before she did, which is frustrating--when a character goes in circles and chases her tail in the pursuit of something that's obvious to the reader, you may have good comedy, but that's all.