Night Moves (A Doc Ford Novel) - Thrilling Mystery Book for Beach Reading & Vacation Entertainment

White's Doc Ford novels have been hit-and-miss: the more recent books have focused more on Florida history and myth than Ford as an international operative, and the series is better for it, I think. In _Night Moves_, White combines the real-life incident of a flight of missing Avengers with the Florida fiction I am such a fan of. Ford is corralled into searching for the lost flight of Avengers, missing since the 1940s, and the goal of treasure hunters and aviation buffs for three quarters of a century. The search is sabotaged, Ford and compadres finding the tail section of a missing Avenger accidentally as a result. The story revolves around related questions: is the tail section from the missing flight? Who sabotaged the search aircraft - and why? White does a solid job of producing reasonable suspects, various outlaws and ne'er do wells that are common on the Florida waterfront, and provides tantalizing clues to the mystery of the Avenger.These elements would otherwise earn _Night Moves_ a 4-star review. However, Whites' inclusion of a water dog (found and rescued while Ford and company are walking out of the Everglades following their crash) warrants a 5th star. Not so much because of the "bit with a dog" (a nod and a wink to Shakespeare In Love, but for White's allusion to his own dog, as written in his short story, "The Legend" found in Batfishing in the Rainforest: Strange Tales of Travel and Fishing ... the short story resonated with me powerfully, and it was bitter-sweet to see an homage made here. Any of White's Doc Ford stories make for idea summer reading - recommend, especially on the beach.