SHARK RIVER

Ah, the pretty women in Doc Ford’s life! How’s a dedicated marine biologist supposed to keep his nose to the grindstone, or his gaze on the shark tank, for that matter, when all those leggy lovelies keep interrupting his research? This time, Doc’s minding his own business at the Sanibel Biological Supply, counting fish on Guava Key (“south of Tampa, north of Naples”), when luscious Lindsey Harrington becomes his latest distraction. True, it’s not really her fault that those Colombian thugs try to kidnap her. And she doesn’t actually compel Doc to take on four of them single-handedly, thwarting the attempt, rescuing grateful, lustful Lindsey and her female bodyguard, and wreaking severe bodily harm along the way. But that’s just the way Doc is: Show him a damsel in distress and his response is downright Pavlovian. Even before he’s begun to extricate Lindsey from her mess, Doc finds himself contending with the problems besetting an importunate Jamaican charmer. Ransom R. Ebanks wants Doc’s help tracking down her inheritance. What’s more, she claims to be his sister. And so it goes. Doc breaks a few heads and, as always, breaks out a few of his patented pieties, while performing manfully in behalf of all the womenfolk still mourning the departure of Travis McGee.

As the series (The Mangrove Coast, 1998, etc.) troops on, the plots seem to get thinner, the sermonettes more frequent. It’s a shame, because once upon a time White could tell quite a story.