Baja Florida

Zack Chasteen’s old friend Mickey Ryser pays a surprise visit to deliver some bad news: doctors tell him he has only a few weeks to live and he plans to spend it on his private-island hideaway in the Bahamas. But Ryser has a favor to ask. He needs Zack to find his estranged daughter, Jen, whom Ryser hasn’t seen in more than twenty years. He wants to make amends and spend what little time he has left with her.

When last heard from, Jen had bought a big sailboat and was bound for the Bahamas with some college friends. A private detective hired by Ryser to track her down has gone MIA. One of Jen’s friends has jumped ship, under curious conditions. And there’s the specter of an international piracy ring, known to hijack and plunder private yachts passing through island waters.

With little to go on, Zack embarks on a mission that will take him from one end of the Bahamas to the other. It’s home to all sorts of rogues and rascals, with plenty of places to hide---a wonderment of islands that Zack calls Baja Florida.

From Publishers WeeklyAt the request of a dying friend, Mickey Ryser, Zack Chasteen goes on a hunt for Ryser's daughter, Jen, in Edgar-finalist Morris's enjoyable if flawed fourth thriller set in Florida and the surrounding waters (after A Deadly Silver Sea). Ryser hasn't seen Jen in 20 years, but she was supposed to be sailing her boat down from Charleston, S.C., with a crew of friends to meet him on Lady Cut Cay, a tiny island in the Bahamas, which Chasteen calls Baja Florida. Chasteen follows the trail blazed by an incompetent detective hired by Ryser, tangles with a ring of boat thieves, and winds up wanted by the Bahamian police. Improbably, neither Ryser, who doesn't know what Jen looks like, nor Chasteen, tries to locate a recent photo of Jen, who's being held prisoner. That readers are privy to Jen's continuing travails lessens the suspense. On the other hand, Chasteen's knack for getting into trouble, his unusual Taino shaman companion, and a rousing ending more than compensate. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From BooklistZack Chasteen, the former footballer turned palm tree farmer and sleuth in the Bahamas, is going to regret that he agreed to do a favor for a friend. Granted, the friend, Mickey, is dying, and the favor is heart touching: Mickey wants Zack to find his estranged daughter, who appears to have disappeared, perhaps along with the private detective Mickey hired to find her. But still: doing a favor is one thing, and risking your own life is something else altogether. Zack handles the various adversities he encounters with his usual wit and aplomb, but the big problem is simply this: How do you find someone when you don’t know what she looks like? Fans of the earlier Chasteen novels, including Jamaica Me Dead (2005) and A Deadly Silver Sea (2008), will enjoy this one’s mixture of humor and mystery. Because each novel can be read as a stand-alone, newcomers to the series can jump right in. --David Pitt