Randy Wayne White, Hunter's Moon

Hunter's Moon

Randy Wayne White

Putnam, March 2007, $24.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 0399153705

Doctor Marion Ford is a marine biologist who runs a store on Sanibel Island that supplies marine samples to labs and schools across the country. He is also something of a spy who came in from the cold although he occasionally gets his feet wet when the situation warrants. When former President Kal Wilson asks him and Tomlinson for their help in exchange for a presidential pardon, they both agree but not because they were coerced; they respect the man who has a one million dollar bounty on his head.

The Panama Canal is owned by a radical fundamentalist and his mentor Allif Halibi is an Islamic cleric who ordered the Fatwa because of Wilson's beliefs that a group of religious fanatics want to start the apocalypse. Wilson's wife was murdered along with six others on a plane that he was supposed to be on. Wilson is determined to avenge his wife's death and he needs Tomlinson's mysticism and Ford's pragmatism to do it.

Randy Wayne White has written a chilling thriller that will have readers feeling as if they are unable to catch their breath. Kal Wilson is one of the most likeable secondary characters in the Ford series. He needs to kill his wife's murderer who turns out to be Ford's enemy and has a limited time to achieve it. He also takes a stand in Panama on what he thinks of Islamic terrorists in a way that resonate with the audience. In other words, Kal steals the show.

Harriet Klausner