THE MAN WHO INVENTED FLORIDA

By the time Agent Angela Walker calls on Marion ``Doc'' Ford (Sanibel Flats, 1990; The Heat Islands, 1991) to ask about his irascible uncle Tucker Gatrell—who has a long history of violence, instability, and orneriness—three men have already vanished in nearby Everglades National Park. But even though he's a suspect, Tuck isn't giving the disappearances a second thought; he's too busy—now that his horse Roscoe has turned up a fountain of youth on land he'd transferred to a holding corporation to avoid real-estate taxes— trying to get the parcel back and keeping the government from grabbing it. The ensuing shenanigans—beginning when Tuck's old Calusa Indian crony Joseph Egret escapes from his nursing home and rustles a championship jumper and concluding with a wild legal triple-cross—add up to the shaggiest mystery you've ever read. Thoroughly antic, brazenly over the top.