White’s ‘Deep Shadow’ a delightful departure

Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford character is your average globe-trotting superspy.

Well, let’s back up just a little. Doc is no James Bond; he’s really just an unassuming marine biologist with a laboratory on Sanibel Island, which is off the southwest coast of Florida. He spends his days collecting marine specimens for various clients and studying marine life and habitats.

Doc’s a laid-back, all-around good guy with a talent for settling differences and coming to the rescue of the random damsel in distress. Except — with this kind of guy, there’s always an “except” — for his vague, perpetually denied background as some sort of shadowy government agent, which is occasionally confirmed by the deployment of skills that one doesn’t pick up in the neighborhood karate studio. And those skills keep Doc much in demand, frequently sending him off to the Caribbean, South America or other points, usually south.

Which brings us to “Deep Shadow,” White’s most recent Doc Ford novel, which is sort of an exception to the “except.” Ford is Ford, surrounded by the usual friends and ending up in a typical pickle — except that in this one Ford’s marine biologist persona is the only one the reader encounters, and the entire story takes place in an area of Florida probably less than 1 square mile.

So this is quite a departure, not only for Ford but also for White. I wouldn’t say that White’s writing has ever been really formulaic, but by any standard this is a whole ‘nother ballgame. It almost seems as though White has challenged himself to shift from a large stage to a small one. At any rate, he succeeds.

The action in “Deep Shadow” may range over a far more compact area than is White’s norm, but it loses not a bit because of it. The reader still is right there, smelling and hearing and tasting and feeling — and wondering how Doc Ford and his friends are going to escape this time.