Passion and intrigue heat up the Florida Keys as Thorn and Alexandra Rafferty--returning from Blackwater Sound ---face down a brutal killer who has kidnapped the daughter of Thorn's best friend. Before Alexandra came into Thorn's live, there had been Anne Joy, a beautiful woman who, after escaping the violence of her past, found something like happiness in the languid life of the Florida Keys. And her past includes her sadistic brother Vic, now a wealthy rogue businessman who specializes in the hijacking of pleasure boats and who delights in cruelly murdering their owners. Vic is obsessed by his sister and will do whatever it takes to drive her lovers away---even murder. When Vic decides that he must possess the land on which Thorn's beloved home is built, nothing will stand in his way---not even the life of a little girl, the daughter of Thorn's closest friend. From the lushness of the Florida Keys to a nightmare climax on the tropical coast of Central America, Off the Chart is vintage Hall. *Starred Review* For a confirmed loner, beach bum Thorn has a way of getting entangled in other people's lives--and then entangling them in his defiant encounters with the outside world. This time his attempt to share his life--and his Key Largo stilt house--with Miami forensic photographer Alexandra Rafferty (from Blackwater Sound ) and her Alzheimer's-afflicted father is imperiled by Thorn's latest crusade: facing down the psychotic developer (and wanna-be pirate) intent on stealing Thorn's beachfront property. "A tinderbox forever on the verge of conflagration," Thorn doesn't take well to forced incursions on his space. Matters become even more combustible when the pirate psycho commandeers a yacht and takes a prisoner, who happens to be the young daughter of Thorn's best friend, Sugarman. Is it Thorn's hard-ass approach to the world that keeps endangering those he cares about? Like Doc Ford in Randy Wayne White's series (see p.1555), Thorn must come to terms with his volatile nature if he is to right his ship, and again like Ford, he does so by trusting his "blinding resolve to go forward, driven by some secret long-ago animal nodule in his brain." It's those animal nodules, in the brains of Thorn and the always-fascinating villains he pursues, that drive the action in Hall's high-energy series, but there is much more than action here. Hall forces us to consider the striking similarity between his hero and his villains, nodules firing on the same cylinders. Yes, we like to imagine ourselves wearing Thorn's deck shoes, in a full-frontal assault on all those who endanger our world, but Hall, unlike most thriller writers, portrays the collateral damage wreaked when rugged individualists go into overdrive. This remains one of the best series in the genre. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "In the crowded and talented pool of South Florida suspense writers, James Hall pretty much has the deep end to himself. Out of reach for most, it's a place of nameless primal fears and murky evil, from which Hall shapes compelling characters in riveting stories. You get caught up in the light and color, the movement of the unfailingly taut action, but you are always aware of something very old and dark beneath it all. His latest novel is wonderfully disturbing in just this way...all of which make the carefully crafted, darkly resonate Off the Chart stay with you." -- Miami Herald "It's because of skillful, solid authors such as Hall that Florida mysteries are no longer an anomaly, but one of the staples of contemporary crime fiction...Hall's examinations of good and evil, obsession and the power of love are richly Off the Chart , a fine addition to the author's superior body of work." -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel "After years of tussling with metaphorical pirates of every stripe, fly-tying South Florida swashbuckler Thorn finally gets to go up against the real thing...the combination of world-class villainy, exotic locations, quick-march pacing, and studly heroism also suggests Thorn's channeling James Bond."-- Kirkus Reviews "A fast-paced rollercoaster ride filled with suspense and never-ending tension...Don't start this book before bed-unless you want to stay up all night reading."-- Romantic Times Praise for Blackwater Sound “If violence can be poetic, Hall has the lyric voice for it.”---Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review “A fine read.”--- Washington Post Book World “Hall keeps the tension high and the surprises coming.”--- People magazine (Page Turner of the Week) “Terrific.” ---Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof “I believe no one has written more lyrically of the Gulfstream since Ernest Hemingway.” ---James Lee Burke, author of Bitterroot and Purple Cane Road “A gorgeous and compelling novel.”---Robert Crais, author of L.A. Requiem and Demolition Angel “Startlingly explosive.”---Dennis Lehane, author of