Fifteen years after a young girl unearths an ancient gold medallion and then mysteriously dies, Doc Ford investigates strange occurrences at the girl's home and concludes that a dangerous person is determined to find the medallion. 22,500 first printing. Of all the Travis McGee wannabes who've appeared on the mystery scene since the death of John D. MacDonald, Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford, the marine biologist with an intentionally vague history of military espionage, comes closest to hitting the mark. In this seventh outing in a popular series that's never quite broken into bestsellerdom, Ford is finagled away from his beloved fish and his stilt house off Florida's Gulf Coast to investigate the grave robbing of a long-dead adolescent girl who had a remarkable gift for finding archaeological artifacts of a long-gone civilization of Calusa Indians. The centuries-old gold medallion that may have been buried with Dorothy Copeland has mysterious powers--at least, that's what a big Florida developer whose son is being groomed for high political office seems to believe. By the time Doc Ford starts investigating the incident, along with his oddly gifted friend Tomlinson (a druggie with a past as violent and mysterious as his own), more lives are at stake, including Doc's. Ten Thousand Islands is based on a true story of multiple tragedies associated with the 1969 discovery of the medallion at the novel's center. But the complicated tale of mayhem and serial murder White weaves of it is all his own. Doc Ford is an increasingly interesting character whose love life takes up as many pages as the plot, but the community of Dinkin's Bay, with its fascinating and well-drawn minor characters, is as great a part of White's series as the denizens of Travis McGee's Fort Lauderdale marina were of MacDonald's. --Jane Adams Based on a true story, the latest Doc Ford adventure mixes archaeology, mysticism, and some old-fashioned head-banging. In the late 1960s, a young boy discovered a valuable ancient Indian artifact off Florida's Gulf Coast; later, the boy killed himself. White uses that incident in his story of a girl with spiritual powers who also finds an ancient medallion and appears to hang herself. Now it's 15 years later, and the girl's grave has been dug up, apparently by someone in search of the medallion. Marine biologist Ford and his hippie pal Tomlinson agree to help the girl's mother put her daughter to rest. The trail leads deep into the past--the history of the Calusa Indians--and equally deep into an all-too-contemporary saga of greed and psychosis. Former CIA agent Ford is a reluctant warrior who, once engaged, goes after the bad guys with a lethal mix of tradecraft and righteous indignation. Both are cranked into overdrive in this satisfying, straight-ahead thriller, nicely overlaid with the reverberations of prehistory. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Key Largo bartender Della Copeland is another of that seemingly inexhaustible supply of strong-yet-vulnerable females who can’t survive without the help of Dr. Marion Ford. Fifteen years after her daughter Dorothy dug up a mysterious gold medallion on Marco Island and started to have even more mysterious visions before she was found hanging from a tree, Della’s home has been ransacked by somebody looking for the medallion—or whatever other talismans he can lay his hands on. Is the would-be thief Ivan Bauerstock, the magnate who owns half of Marco Island? Teddy Bauerstock, the dead-eyed charmer his old man’s grooming for the state senate and points north? Bauerstock contractor Frank Rossi, whose own son Tony bids fair to follow in his father’s slimy footsteps? A savior-for-hire who seems to worship at the shrine of Travis McGee can’t go wrong assuming everybody on the horizon is out to make trouble for the ladies, and standing ready to repel the monstrous males one by one. And that's just what Doc Ford, who’d have you believe he’d rather be supplying marine specimens to the Mote Marine Laboratory than mixing it up with the bad guys, does—with results more stimulating to the adrenal glands than the cerebral cortex. Memo to more sensitive guys: the suggestion that Dorothy may be Doc’s repeatedly reincarnated astral soulmate, tragically dead less than 20 short years before they were to meet, should help you decide whether Doc’s seventh adventure (The Mangrove Coast, 1998, etc.) is for you -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "White... delivers a gritty adventure with enough atmosphere to make you think there's sand between the pages." -- The Altanta Journal-Constitution Plenty of great twists... a spectacular escape, make this one of the most satisfying thrillers in recent memory. -- Chicago Tribune, May 14, 2000 Randy Wayne White is the author of seventeen previous Doc Ford novels and four collections of nonfiction. He lives in an old house built on an Indian mound in Pineland, Florida.