Man Who Invented Florida (Doc Ford Series #3) » (Reprint)

Randy Wayne White is a columnist for Outside Magazine, the host of "On the Water," a PBS television series, and a veteran Sanibel Island fishing guide. He lives with his family in Ft. Myers, Florida.

When solitary marine biologist Doc Ford focused his telescope on the woman in the white boat, he didn't know his life was about to be capsized: that his conniving uncle Tucker Gatrell would discover the Fountain of Youth, that The National Enquirer would write about it, and that the law would beat down his door in search of three missing men.

But Doc Ford is about to find these things out— the hard way. Because in the shadowy world of Southwest Florida, where gators yawn, cattle craze, and Indian bones are buried, mysteries great and small have found the man to solve them...

Publishers Weekly

In the third Doc Ford adventure, White again seamlessly splices an offbeat west coast of Florida locale with even more offbeat inhabitants. Principal among them is Doc Ford, who operates a small biological-supply business from a lab in his stilt-supported house. Lately, Doc has tried to control his telescope viewing of a tanned, red-haired woman who skinny-dips off an offshore sailboat and to limit his beer intake to four a day. While trying to be patient with his hippie pal Thomlinson, who drops by to expound on many topics, Doc reluctantly gets involved with his Uncle Tucker, who lives up the coast in Mango. Tuck has discovered a well of healing water on his land that he claims is responsible for his old gelded horse's newly grown testicles. Smuggled into a local rest home, the water has dramatically revived the moribund sex life of his Native American buddy Joseph Egret. Tuck's trouble is his somewhat uncertain ownership of the land. While he importunes Doc for help, the local news focuses on the disappearance into the mangrove swamps of two government investigators and a much loathed TV fisherman. Like fellow Floridian Carl Hiaasen, White ( The Heat Islands ) is adept at weaving ecological concerns into an oddball narrative with no loss of steam. The fate of the three missing men, even by bizarre Florida crime fiction standards, is inspired. (Dec.)