The Heat Islands

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This is the second novel in Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford series. It's excellent!

Doc is a ex-NSA spook, seemingly content with his life as a marine biologist, running a biological supply company. Unfortunately, he gets dragged into a murder mystery when a despised marina owner is found floating out in the water during a fishing tournament. Doc's friend gets accused of murder, and is surprisingly copacetic about it. In addition, Doc has to deal with his complex relationship with a woman tennis pro, and somehow he's also gotten on the bad side of a psychotic killer. So he keeps busy throughout, but maintains his bemused sense of humor.

Compared with the first book, Sanibel Flats, there's no international intrigue, and no apocolyptic finish. This also works fine for me.


Last Modified 2024-02-03 8:12 AM EDT

URLs du Jour

2006-06-25

  • I suspect this happens more often than we generally realize:

    1. A scientific paper is published that presents equivocal data of marginal statistical significance;

    2. The results are overinterpreted by the author of a science-popularizing book who casts it into support of his provocative thesis; he cites the paper in a supporting footnote that nobody follows up on, but looks solid;

    3. The book is endlessly quoted by magazines and newspaper op-eds, and the dubious thesis becomes Scientific Truth for the masses.

    Mark Liberman at Language Log does some impressive detective work in tracking down a (probably) mistaken overgeneralization in the area of cognitive differences between boys and girls, and shows pretty convincingly that it's a specific case of the process above. Any others?

  • Not that this, or most any, blog is a paragon of spelling virtue, but … headline on a blog post at a site entitled "ProgressiveU":
    If your going to college...READ THIS!!!
    Moan.

  • William F. Buckley Jr. on George W. Bush, Jacob Weisberg, and articulateness.

  • And say what you will about Al "No Controlling Legal Authority" Gore, but he can occasionally be tempted to at least pretend that he has a sense of self-deprecating humor.

    "It's funny because it's true."


Last Modified 2012-10-23 3:19 PM EDT