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Summary: This book has the best closing paragraph I've ever read .
Review: (Please don't read the last paragraph first, though) I first started reading Randy Wayne White's books because I love Sanibel/Captiva Islands. His characters are so real and his plots so intriguing, I found myself rationing how much I read each day because I didn't want it to end. I still feel like an insider when I catch his little references or inside jokes about the islands. Club Nautico, Randy?
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Summary: A Sucker for a Damsel in Distress
Review: Doc Ford is Marion Ford, Ph.D., a Harrison Ford type marine biologist who lives alone in a stilt cabin on Sanibel Island. Ford is footloose and fancy free until - in each book - his peace and tranquillity is disturbed by a very attractive damsel in distress.On and off again Ford has been haunted by the death of spook pal Bobby Richardson, who died in an explosion in Cambodia during the post-Vietnam War days. It was a meaningless tragedy, the result of a land mine that destroyed a good friend and left a beautiful wife and a child to fend for themselves back home. When the grown-up daughter, twenty-five-year-old Amanda, contacts Ford, quoting a letter from her father in which he said Ford would always be there in an emergency, Ford can hardly turn her away. He couldn't anyway, she's a damsel in distress, after all. Amada's mother, Gail Richardson Calloway, has been deserted by her second husband and gone off to Colombia, apparently but unbelievably of her own free will, with a very unsavory character, Then second husband, Frank Calloway, is found dead soon after her disappearance and now Gail's bank accounts are being methodically depleted. Amanda wants Ford to help search for her mother and to bring her back home. Ford flies off to Colombia to find Bobby's widow, then tracks and follows her to Panama. Along the way he manages to get into fights to the death with some pretty tough dudes in this action-packed thriller that I simply couldn't get enough off. At times the story seemed a bit of a clichè, but you what, it's been over a week since I finished the book and I'm still thinking about it. That really says something about a story. Reviewed by Leeann Douglass
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Summary: A delectable recipe of inventive and intelligent writing
Review: Doc Ford, protagonist of Randy Wayne White's sixth novel, lives the simple life of a marine biologist on Sanibel Island, surrounded by a colorful group of characters who inhabit Dinkin's Bay Marina, Ford's home. But Doc has a past he can't quite shake. He's spent time in the employ of an unnamed government agency, living in the jungles of political hotspots throughout the world without benefit of a passport, performing tasks that no government could sanction. When the daughter of Bobby Richardson, an associate who was killed on one of these missions twenty years ago, contacts him with the news that her mother - Richardson's widow - has vanished, Ford agrees to try to find her. Assisted by the mystical analytical skills of his unconventional pal Tomlinson, Ford embarks on a search-and-rescue mission that begins on the Internet before leading him to Colombia and then to Panama, in pursuit of a villain whose heart is the darkest he's ever faced. White has produced a crackling tale of suspense filled with intelligent dialogue and more plot twists than a Clinton deposition. His evocative descriptions of the Dinkin's Bay community make you want to pack a bag, grab the first flight south and watch the sun settle into the Gulf of Mexico in your shorts and bare feet, a cold beer in your hand. In short, Randy Wayne White is a writer of the first magnitude, and "The Mangrove Coast" is his finest work yet.
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Summary: This book deserves more than 5 stars!
Review: For those other reviewers who wrote that this was one of Mr. White's weaker books, I respectfully don't know what book they read. Certainly it wasn't The Mangrove Coast. This book, if anything, reminds me how the Doc Ford series gets better with each additional book. I have just stayed up all night to finish this book, and when it ended I literally had tears in my eyes and couldn't wait to rush on to the next Doc Ford saga. I completely agree with the other reviewer who said that the last paragraph in the book is one of the best he's ever read. In fact, the entire Epilog is the exact reason that I read books. It's a perfect payoff to a perfect book. It's something I can promise I'll pull down from my shelf in the future to read again. In every Doc Ford book, there is a sort of slow, meandering quality to the stories. You genuinely feel yourself really drawn in to the Florida where Mr. White worked for so many years as a fishing guide. The settings and characters of Dinkins Bay and Sanibel Island have always been as much a reason to read the stories as the main plot itself. With this book, while the atmosphere is certainly there along with the usual cast of characters, the story focuses heavily around a truly evil person doing some truly evil things. The sort of things that only a man like Doc Ford can set right. His growing awareness of the evil he is confronting, and his righteous quest to rescue the wife of an old friend, would make a fantastic movie. This book is filled with some very funny scenes (both Tomlinson and Tucker Gatrell are featured prominently in this story, and both made me laugh out loud at times), and it's also got some of the best suspense and action I've read in a long time. There is also the visceral pleasure of seeing the breed of poetic justice meted out against the bad guys that's so much a part of the Doc Ford series. Don't pay any attention to those who say this book isn't one of Randy Wayne White's best. It is. In fact, it's on the top of my list so far. I may change my opinion, though, because 'Ten Thousand Islands' is on my short list of books to read next...
Rating: 
Summary: Far from his Best
Review: I'm a big fan of Doc Ford, but this installment made me realize that he has his down days (and books). It took White 2/3 of the book to really get cranking and then it seemed like he was making up for lost time. Jackie Merlot was so despicable that it wasn't a question of "Will he die?" but "How?" I forgave the credibility-stretched ending because I was glad to at least resolve some of the loose strings. Randy Wayne White has been compared favorably to John D. MacDonald (and deserves to be) but the plot for "Mangrove Coast" treads a little TOO close to a former Travis McGee novel, "The Deep Blue Empty." Both novels had a way of meandering along slowly to a final, violent conclusion. I noticed that one of the reviews for this book's follow-up, "Shark River," accused it of being too action-packed. I would imagine that the readers' reactions to this book are the reason why. Keep up the GOOD work, Mr. White!
Rating:
Summary: Far from his Best
Review: I'm a big fan of Doc Ford, but this installment made me realize that he has his down days (and books). It took White 2/3 of the book to really get cranking and then it seemed like he was making up for lost time. Jackie Merlot was so despicable that it wasn't a question of "Will he die?" but "How?" I forgave the credibility-stretched ending because I was glad to at least resolve some of the loose strings. Randy Wayne White has been compared favorably to John D. MacDonald (and deserves to be) but the plot for "Mangrove Coast" treads a little TOO close to a former Travis McGee novel, "The Deep Blue Empty." Both novels had a way of meandering along slowly to a final, violent conclusion. I noticed that one of the reviews for this book's follow-up, "Shark River," accused it of being too action-packed. I would imagine that the readers' reactions to this book are the reason why. Keep up the GOOD work, Mr. White!
Rating: 
Summary: Far from White's Best!
Review: I've been a fan of Randy Wayne White since I read Sanibel Flats and have eagerly anticipated every new book. The only unsuccessful book in the series was The Man Who Invented Florida, written in a Carl Hiaassen, Laurence Shames comedic style that never quite rang true. Mr. White has a superb prose style, both elegant and evocative. The characters are well rounded and sympathetic, the dialogue riveting. The references of other reviewers that Doc Ford is a sort of poor-man's Travis McGee, in my opinion, misses the mark. Ford is a far more complex character than Travis McGee, and the plots of the Doc Ford novels are far less formulaic. Every Travis McGee novel seemed to pit the hero against a man who, basically, was both tougher and smarter than McGee. Travis McGee always seemed to win out with a large helping of serendipity. The Mangrove Coast immediately grabs the reader and doesn't let go until the very end. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I've been a fan of Randy Wayne White since I read Sanibel Flats and have eagerly anticipated every new book. The only unsuccessful book in the series was The Man Who Invented Florida, written in a Carl Hiaassen, Laurence Shames comedic style that never quite rang true. Mr. White has a superb prose style, both elegant and evocative. The characters are well rounded and sympathetic, the dialogue riveting. The references of other reviewers that Doc Ford is a sort of poor-man's Travis McGee, in my opinion, misses the mark. Ford is a far more complex character than Travis McGee, and the plots of the Doc Ford novels are far less formulaic. Every Travis McGee novel seemed to pit the hero against a man who, basically, was both tougher and smarter than McGee. Travis McGee always seemed to win out with a large helping of serendipity. The Mangrove Coast immediately grabs the reader and doesn't let go until the very end. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Boring and depressing
Review: I've enjoyed many of White's books for his engaging characters and suspenseful plots. However, this one's not one of his best. The plot takes a long time to get going, and the characters are so pathetic, or so unsavory, that I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. In White's defense, probably a real-life covert operation would be 75% research and 25% excitement. However, this ratio does not work well in a book. The hero spends too much time doing his research at home, and only the last quarter of the book rescuing the troubled victim. And the ending -- depressing and pointless.
Rating:
Summary: Great ending, weak plot
Review: I've followed the Doc Ford series with a lot of enthusiasm. But I found Mangrove Coast very slow to get going. It took about 250 pages for Doc to quit spewing his philosophies on the ills of society and get some action going. Great ending,but it just doesn't make up for a long, drawn-out middle. Ambrose Bierce said something like "A novel is just a short story padded". That quote about sums it up for me. But do read the rest of the series.
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