Summer reading so fun it’s criminal

It’s summertime. The living is easy. You have the cottage for two weeks.

Sure, you love to do a little fishing, a little swimming, even a short hike or two. But you know the moments you savor the most are on the chaise lounge with an icy cold beverage in your hand, with a perfectly useless crime novel with no redeemable qualities. The more dead bodies, the better.

Part of my addiction with Amazon.com (almost 100 books in a year) is the exploration of the crime genre. The marketing devils at Amazon send a list of recommendations from other addicts. If I see some Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard or Robert B. Parker books on the list, I give their other recommendations serious weight.

It was here that I found Randy Wayne White and Daniel Woodrell.

Actually after making spring pilgrimages to Fort Myers to watch the Red Sox for the past decade, I have become aware of the fabulous islands of Sanibel and Captiva, the scenes of White’s Doc Ford novels. Naturally I was predisposed toward appreciation.

The Ford novels are very funny and the (sort of) hero lives as a quiet marine biologist in a stilt house next to Dinkin’s Marina on Captiva, now one of my favorite spots. Our “hero” has a past that is mostly buried in the floor safe of his stilt house, but surfaces just in time for the latest adventure. He was one of a super-secret band of assassins cross-trained by the CIA, FBI, Navy SEALs and a host of other agencies.

Carl Hiassen, the Miami Herald columnist who originated the genre of Florida crime madness novels, said, “A Doc Ford novel has more slick moves than a snake in the mangroves. In ‘Captiva,’ Randy Wayne White takes us places no other Florida mystery writer could hope to find.”

Warning: if you buy one (Try “The Man Who Invented Florida”), you will be doomed to buy the others, which include “The Heat Islands,” “Sanibel Flats,” “Captiva,” “North of Havana” and “The Mangrove Coast.”

On his Web site, White said he developed his style and plots while working as a local fishing guide. “For the 13 years I was a fishing guide at Tarpon Bay on Sanibel, our small marina community loved company. The same is true at Dinkin’s Bay. One of the questions most commonly asked of me is: ‘Do the characters in your books really exist?’ Well … I know too many attorneys to reply to that … but I will tell you that, like Ford, I have a passionate interest in biology and baseball. I still play.

Unfortunately for me, that’s where all comparisons with Doc Ford end – he’s much smarter, tougher and more articulate than I.

“Does the community of Dinkin’s Bay really exist? Read the books and decide for yourselves … and come back soon.”

In stark contrast to the brilliant Florida sunshine that serves as the backdrop for most of the White novels, Woodrell’s plots are in murky barrooms and steamy swamps of his native Ozark Mountains.

Another warning: Woodrell novels are dark and evil and the good are as likely to end up dead with rocks sewn into their chest so they won’t surface after a couple of days in the swamp. Family relations can take some very evil twists.

Woodrell must be treasured for his sickness.

Even the sophisticated New York Times has given him some reluctant plaudits, saying, “Since his debut with ‘Under the Bright Lights’ (1986), Woodrell has been preoccupied with the complicated emotional claims of family amid the harsh backcountry of his native Ozarks. He has struggled to find a prose style that is authentic to the unlettered poetry of his characters yet supple and sharp in its explication of twisted consciousness. A trio of detective stories found Woodrell’s themes at odds with genre expectations, and a historical novel, ‘Woe to Live On’ (1987), was well executed but a dead end. His breakthrough was ‘Give Us a Kiss’ (1996), a ‘country noir’ written like Elmore Leonard slurping moonshine, a manner Woodrell brilliantly refined in ‘Tomato Red’ (1998). Now he has achieved near mastery of style: language, plot, characterization and theme mesh with a seamless power and without the sardonic glibness.”

A fellow addict on Amazon, W.A. from Seattle, said, “Woodrell is a master of dark humor, peopling his novels with characters who have yet to be housebroken. But with Woodrell the rough, rowdy and savage characters are very human – embracing both the good life and destructive fate with humor.”

His Web site states that Woodrell was a high school dropout who joined the Marine Corps at 17. A period of post-military drifting ended up at the University of Kansas and a Michener fellowship at the Iowa Writers School, where he was definitely the odd man out. His first novel, “Under the Bright Lights,” used the noir form and brought him high praise and recognition from fellow writers. He has also written two other noir novels featuring the Shade family, “Muscle for the Wing” and “The Ones You Do,” the Civil War novel “Woe To Live On” (filmed as “Ride with the Devil” by Ang Lee) and the country noir “Give Us A Kiss.” He lives in West Plains, Mo., with his wife, the writer, Katie Estill.

You have been warned. Purchase at your own peril.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.