Mean High Tide

Rating:
Summary: Hall, yet again, delivers the goods...
Review: ...Hall, if you are at all familiar with him, is absolutely an incredible author. If you are coming to Hall via Hiaasen/Shames/Dorsey/Barry or even Leonard, a word of caution: Hall tends to use a slightly more doom and gloom approach to his writing. His is a work that is going to have a more ominious (even melancholy)tone to it---no offbeat hijinks to level off the atmosphere. With the other authors, save for instance Randy Wayne White, you get a little humor to lighten the load somewhat. Not here. Here, you better hang on because it's going to be a bitter armageddon.

This is classic Hall. The story involves a huge amount of topics, all of which Hall (like a juggler) never lets fall. There are times when Hall returns to a point/storyline a bit late, but I truly only say that as a word of caution to those with severe attention-span disorders. But, as I cautioned above, the storylines here weigh pretty heavy.

Topics include a mafioso guy with a penchant for child pornography. An under-developed, highly-sexed-in-situations girl who in involved with an incestuous relationship with her father (whom she is trying to kill). The incest-father is an ex-cia masterkiller who is slowly poisoning the stroke-victim-husband of his exwife (incest victim's mother). Not to give too much away, mafioso guy is related to incest victim and exwife and has his hand in the murder. Or does he? How???? Hmmm, for you to find out.

Also include some great government conspiracies and nudist colonies. Now throw in some old fashioned underwater murder and you've got just a wee sketch of what's going on.

Hall carries this off amazingly. Dark subject matter, sure. But a [darn] good story by an altogether incredible author. Other authors could learn a thing or two from Hall. Particularly, as much as I love him, Tim Dorsey. Dorsey has a slight problem with including far too many storylines that are of no consequence (and are totally meaningless in the big picture), and has a [heck] of time trying to keep them altogether. Still, don't take this to imply that you should avoid Dorsey. In fact, read all of his books. I certainly have.

Anyway, enjoy this one if you are up for it. Just realize what you're in for. Hopefully I've given you a heads up as to what that is.

Rating:
Summary: Hall, yet again, delivers the goods...
Review: ...Hall, if you are at all familiar with him, is absolutely an incredible author. If you are coming to Hall via Hiaasen/Shames/Dorsey/Barry or even Leonard, a word of caution: Hall tends to use a slightly more doom and gloom approach to his writing. His is a work that is going to have a more ominious (even melancholy)tone to it---no offbeat hijinks to level off the atmosphere. With the other authors, save for instance Randy Wayne White, you get a little humor to lighten the load somewhat. Not here. Here, you better hang on because it's going to be a bitter armageddon.

This is classic Hall. The story involves a huge amount of topics, all of which Hall (like a juggler) never lets fall. There are times when Hall returns to a point/storyline a bit late, but I truly only say that as a word of caution to those with severe attention-span disorders. But, as I cautioned above, the storylines here weigh pretty heavy.

Topics include a mafioso guy with a penchant for child pornography. An under-developed, highly-sexed-in-situations girl who in involved with an incestuous relationship with her father (whom she is trying to kill). The incest-father is an ex-cia masterkiller who is slowly poisoning the stroke-victim-husband of his exwife (incest victim's mother). Not to give too much away, mafioso guy is related to incest victim and exwife and has his hand in the murder. Or does he? How???? Hmmm, for you to find out.

Also include some great government conspiracies and nudist colonies. Now throw in some old fashioned underwater murder and you've got just a wee sketch of what's going on.

Hall carries this off amazingly. Dark subject matter, sure. But a [darn] good story by an altogether incredible author. Other authors could learn a thing or two from Hall. Particularly, as much as I love him, Tim Dorsey. Dorsey has a slight problem with including far too many storylines that are of no consequence (and are totally meaningless in the big picture), and has a [heck] of time trying to keep them altogether. Still, don't take this to imply that you should avoid Dorsey. In fact, read all of his books. I certainly have.

Anyway, enjoy this one if you are up for it. Just realize what you're in for. Hopefully I've given you a heads up as to what that is.

Rating:
Summary: Fine thriller with lyrical poetic images of Florida
Review: Hall is the best of the Florida writers, and this is one of his most beautifully crafted novels. From the opening scene snorkeling on the reefs off Key Largo, to the final scenes in the Everglades, Hall renders the natural beauty of Florida like no other writer ever has. The thrills are there too, and wild characters (like Hiaasen's, only 3 dimensional), and great dialog. This is one of the best novels by one of the best thriller writers in the country.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic novel. Lyrical and scary
Review: Hall is the best of the Florida writers. His novels are complex and beautifully written and always full of scary situations and wild bad guys. Mean High Tide is one of his very best, which to my mind makes it one of the best thrillers I've ever read.

Just the opening few chapters will blow anyone away who loves good writing and wild characters. There's a scene on the coral reefs in Key Largo that is as vivid and richly detailed as any underwater writing I've ever read. And in the same scene a moment occurs that is break-your-heart sad and scary at once.

His environmental concerns are also richly detailed in this book. The very real threat of the tilapia fish being introduced into the warm tropical waters of Florida gives the book a moral weight that most thrillers lack.

He's the best. Read all of them. But if you want to see Thorn at his most creative and angriest, read this novel.

Rating:
Summary: A Forgettable Mess
Review: Hall offers yet another look at the seamy underbelly of South Florida life, this one with a plot revolving around revenge, the threat of environmental havoc, and a rather forgettable cast of characters. The ostensible hero, Thorn (although he's not particularly interesting or likable to root for, nor nasty enough to be an anti-hero) comes across a scheme to genetically modify and breed Red Tilapia, with potentially devastating consequences for Florida's coastal ecology. Thorn is apparently a carryover from previous novels, in which other relatives and friends of his have been murdered, so perhaps the reader is meant to have gotten to know him better from these previous outings. In any event, when his girlfriend dies mysteriously while diving, he and his ex-cop buddy start poking their noses around. This soon entangles them with Sylvia, a stereotype man-eating sex kitten who has a bizarre relationship with her ex-CIA hitman father. Their combined actions and motivations require a rather substantial suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. This is also required when someone tried to kill Thorn in his house, spending a considerable time firing a gun at his house without rousing anybody in the neighborhood. Of course, it's never really clear how or why this person comes looking for Thorn, much less to shoot at! Throw into the mix a wildlife inspector with a detachable nose, a pudgy retired Mafia boss, a mass killing at a federal research facility that apparently somehow got covered up, a bizarre and herky-jerky climax, and what you're left with is a big mess. Hall is at his best in his lyrical descriptions of the water and landscape, but when it comes to dialogue and story, he falters and often fails.

Rating:
Summary: Eco-mysytery with compelling plot but over-detailed descript
Review: I enjoyed this book, an eco-mystery with an engaging plot about red tilapia--a contradiction in terms because impossible. Hall's descriptive detail was a bit over the top: one got the sense that he tried to build suspense by shifting to descriptive detail instead of continuing the narrative--thus one longed for less of it at times. His plotting and characters, esp. Sylvie and her father Harden Winchester were great.I especially enjoyed the description of snorkling but was thrown by the fact that the one character I really liked was murdered within the first few chapters. Her death was the kind that made you hide your eyes and hold your friend's hand.

Rating:
Summary: Walking Catfish, Grass Carp, Zebra Mussels, etc.
Review: Invasive exotic species, get the picture? Eventually so does Thorn. A breeding program to develop a species of "red" tilapia under the theory that Americans will eat anything that's "red," not so far fetched now that we know about red dye in farmed salmon, threatens to unleash a flood of unwelcome visitors into the glades watershed. The story is a bit heavy handed, but after all so is Thorn.
I discovered a used copy of this novel in a bookstore in the Keys a few years ago while hunting a poolside "read." Almost got as red as the tilapia as I forgot the time in the sun and since have hunted down the entire series. A rough, tough south Florida adventure novel, and while not Hall's best it's worth the time if you like this sort of fiction. I do.

Rating:
Summary: Hall delivers once again!
Review: James W. Hall is an excellent author, his books are always full of adventure, non stop edge of your seat suspense and packed with factual scientific information pertinent to the day in time.

Hall introduces the story by forcing the reader to feel what it's really like to be inside of Thorn's skin. With the death of his close companion we share his anger, outrage, frustration and grief. The plot of the story holds more meaning because the reader is personally and emotionally tied to the story.

Although the story is obviously fictional one cannot help wondering how far fetched a biological disaster as such could really be. In nature one finds that these occurances are often natually corrected however this book presents the question, "What if it occurs intentionally?" and more importantly, "Why?"

James W. Hall is indisputably worth your money, attention and time. Don't stop with Mean High Tide!!!

Rating:
Summary: Hall delivers once again!
Review: What a disturbing picture of law enforcement in Florida James Hall paints. Twelve corpses of people who worked in a federal research facility stacked up "like Lincoln Logs", discovered by a volunteer fire dept. crew, and nothing leaks out to the news media. No investigation is ever made. Why? Because the "good stuff never makes it into the paper", according to one nudist colony member now living at the scene of the crime. "The truly interesting news, somehow they manage to keep it quiet." We're expected to believe this? That purges going on in Florida are kept quiet? And who is the "they" that keeps it quiet? That question is never really answered, other than some oblique references to the CIA.

Thorn, the laconic he-man hero of Mean High Tide readily swallows this line without a trace of doubt. So too, apparently, did the families and friends of the slaughtered researchers. Yet, in another part of Florida, a "thorough investigation" is made to find the person who carved an obscenity into the skin of a potato.

Now, I'm not a person who insists on absolute realism in fiction, but, golly, this seems a bit much. Twelve people? A potato skin?

Later, an ex-Mafia hood comes into Thorn's house in a quiet residential neighborhood and honeycombs it with shots from a gun that makes fist size holes in the hardwood floor. In my limited experience, a gun that powerful makes quite a loud noise. Yet no one calls the police. Thorn has to be talked into doing this himself by his friend, Sugar, an ex-cop. It's a gross inconvenience to Thorn, who, in his words, is "not up to dealing with police bullshit at the moment". A man of action, he is not often up to dealing with such niceties, for he is usually busy avenging the brutal killings of virtually all his loved ones: his mother, his brother, his lover, his friends, the environment...

All Thorn's rage, however, cannot drive out one nagging problem of plot. The man wielding the big gun in Thorn's house had no motive in the story for being there. In fact, he has no direct contact with Thorn for the rest of the book.

Simply put, huge parts of Mean High Tide make no sense. The assassin with no motive nor connection, the uninvestigated pile of twelve bodies, the other uninvestigated pile of bodies discovered by Thorn later, the curious fact that animals, from squirrels to alligators, copulate whenever observed by Thorn...

While the plot is a mess, the characterizations at least are acceptable, especially those of the villains. The most amusing is Sylvie, a demented girl of 25 who lures men to try to kill her father, an ex-CIA assassin. He, too, is a splendidly evil fellow, hatching a scheme to destroy the planet's biodiversity. His cruel cunning and ruthlessness provides a welcome respite from the tediously macho and stolid Thorn and his equally tedious, though less macho, sidekick Sugar.

But then even Harden Winchester (the ex-CIA hit man) falls prey to expository monologue disease in a scene at a bar with Thorn that is so dazzlingly out of character for the brutal killer that I was sure the referee would step in and stop it. But no. It plodded doggedly on for several pages until we realized why the hit man was so naughty.

There is a climax toward the end in which Thorn administers mouth to mouth resuscitation to Sugar (is there a gay subtext here?), while a few feet away occurs simultaneously what may be termed The Clash of the Geriatric Titans. (Where else but in Florida?) After these and other conflicts are resolved, there remains only the environment to save. To accomplish this, the fish are assaulted by hand grenades (yes, the fish) thrown by the redoubtable Thorn. If you want to know why, you'll have to read Mean High Tide.

Rating:
Summary: A murder mystery that very closely approaches mediocrity
Review: What a disturbing picture of law enforcement in Florida James Hall paints. Twelve corpses of people who worked in a federal research facility stacked up "like Lincoln Logs", discovered by a volunteer fire dept. crew, and nothing leaks out to the news media. No investigation is ever made. Why? Because the "good stuff never makes it into the paper", according to one nudist colony member now living at the scene of the crime. "The truly interesting news, somehow they manage to keep it quiet." We're expected to believe this? That purges going on in Florida are kept quiet? And who is the "they" that keeps it quiet? That question is never really answered, other than some oblique references to the CIA.

Thorn, the laconic he-man hero of Mean High Tide readily swallows this line without a trace of doubt. So too, apparently, did the families and friends of the slaughtered researchers. Yet, in another part of Florida, a "thorough investigation" is made to find the person who carved an obscenity into the skin of a potato.

Now, I'm not a person who insists on absolute realism in fiction, but, golly, this seems a bit much. Twelve people? A potato skin?

Later, an ex-Mafia hood comes into Thorn's house in a quiet residential neighborhood and honeycombs it with shots from a gun that makes fist size holes in the hardwood floor. In my limited experience, a gun that powerful makes quite a loud noise. Yet no one calls the police. Thorn has to be talked into doing this himself by his friend, Sugar, an ex-cop. It's a gross inconvenience to Thorn, who, in his words, is "not up to dealing with police bullshit at the moment". A man of action, he is not often up to dealing with such niceties, for he is usually busy avenging the brutal killings of virtually all his loved ones: his mother, his brother, his lover, his friends, the environment...

All Thorn's rage, however, cannot drive out one nagging problem of plot. The man wielding the big gun in Thorn's house had no motive in the story for being there. In fact, he has no direct contact with Thorn for the rest of the book.

Simply put, huge parts of Mean High Tide make no sense. The assassin with no motive nor connection, the uninvestigated pile of twelve bodies, the other uninvestigated pile of bodies discovered by Thorn later, the curious fact that animals, from squirrels to alligators, copulate whenever observed by Thorn...

While the plot is a mess, the characterizations at least are acceptable, especially those of the villains. The most amusing is Sylvie, a demented girl of 25 who lures men to try to kill her father, an ex-CIA assassin. He, too, is a splendidly evil fellow, hatching a scheme to destroy the planet's biodiversity. His cruel cunning and ruthlessness provides a welcome respite from the tediously macho and stolid Thorn and his equally tedious, though less macho, sidekick Sugar.

But then even Harden Winchester (the ex-CIA hit man) falls prey to expository monologue disease in a scene at a bar with Thorn that is so dazzlingly out of character for the brutal killer that I was sure the referee would step in and stop it. But no. It plodded doggedly on for several pages until we realized why the hit man was so naughty.

There is a climax toward the end in which Thorn administers mouth to mouth resuscitation to Sugar (is there a gay subtext here?), while a few feet away occurs simultaneously what may be termed The Clash of the Geriatric Titans. (Where else but in Florida?) After these and other conflicts are resolved, there remains only the environment to save. To accomplish this, the fish are assaulted by hand grenades (yes, the fish) thrown by the redoubtable Thorn. If you want to know why, you'll have to read Mean High Tide.