It's probably a good thing that the marina went belly up a couple decades back. If it hadn't, Randy Wayne White might still be running charter boats for Cleveland businessmen hoping to hook a Hemingway marlin while they're playing hooky from some damn conference of mid-management desktop jockeys.

You get the impression that that would be all right with Randy. Fishing is large in his world, and he spends as much of his life on the water as he can. But his writing schedule means that he's behind his keyboard a significant amount of time.

And that's all right with us.

In the ever-growing pantheon of Florida fiction, Randy Wayne White is a grand master. And his career as a fishing guide turned out to be great research for his second life as a writer. White's character, Marion "Doc" Ford, could easily hold his own with John D. McDonald's Travis McGee; a marine biologist, he's as much a part of Florida as coral and sea salt.

Though Ford approaches the aquatic world as a scholar, it's life on Sanibel Island that keeps his spirits afloat. Little parts of Doc's past are revealed in each book — as if, while looking through Your Beloved's desk, you find something she wrote long ago to someone you've never heard about. Sixteen novels deep in the Doc Ford series, the guy is still pretty mysterious.

And that's one of the great things about him. Even if you've read every single word of the books, Doc can still surprise you.

And it's not just Doc. His friend Tomlinson — an aging hippie who's part mystic, part mercenary — is a bag full of riddles, too.

Dead Silence (Putnam, $25.95) finds Ford in New York, romancing a brilliant and extremely hot senator. He watches from an upstairs window as some thugs try to kidnap her. She gets out of the limo alive, but the baddies get more than they bargain for: a 14-year-old Indian whom the senator was escorting to an essay awards ceremony. (That he won the contest on false pretenses — his paramour teacher wrote it — is just the beginning of the story of this complex kid.) Like the kidnappers in O. Henry's "Ransom of Red Chief," the captors find their prisoner is more trouble than he's worth.

The story unfurls in classic Randy Wayne White fashion — meaning it's filled with suspense, beautiful writing and arresting dialogue between the two perplexing main characters, Doc and Tomlinson.

Will we ever learn the whole back story? Does the author even know it all? And what's the deal with taking Ford away from readers' beloved Dinkin's Bay on Sanibel Island and planting him on the frozen tundra of Long Island?

Here's what he told me:

"In preparation for writing the first book, Sanibel Flats, I wrote lengthy bios for Ford and Tomlinson, hoping the book would be published, thus beginning a series. Ford, purely linear, Tomlinson, purely spiritual. Can't speak for everyone, but those two cerebral components are often at odds in me, so I thought it would provide for interesting dialogue in a relationship that I knew, from the beginning, was a sort of death dance between polar opposites. Valid, too: we all wrestle until there is a victor, even if temporary. I know how the books must end — if I ever get to the end, but that's at least 10 books away."

OK, fair enough. Just so long as he knows where it might be going. Each novel raises new questions that intrigue, but I suppose that's the idea — to keep us coming back.

On to the other issue — locale. Even those of us who live in Florida, near beaches and umbrella drinks, are often manacled to desks. So we dig the whole cargo-short mentality that we get from Ford and Tomlinson and the open-air life at Dinkin's Bay Marina. We live vicariously through these fictional dudes and tell ourselves, "Yeah, sure — I could rip off this fucking necktie and do that." So what the hell are Ford and Tomlinson doing in the dead of winter, shivering in their too-thin coats?

White says, "I was surprised how many people disliked the book because it was set, early on, in New York. It's both heartening and instructive, the degree of passion readers bring to the Dinkin's Bay world. However, I write for myself, and for the characters I employ events, places and people that I find intellectually and emotionally compelling. The characters are following their own lives, and if they drag me to New York occasionally, so be it."

White overstates the case about people "disliking" the book. Not true. It has lodged itself in the upper stratosphere of the New York Times bestseller list and is on track to be the most successful of the series. Maybe getting Ford out of water has worked to expand White's audience.

Still, though he writes to please himself, White is aware of the sensitivity of Ford fans on the subject. "The next book, Deep Shadow, is set entirely in Florida — very deep in Florida, as well — which I knew prior to Silence's release."

White has a great online presence at www.docford.com and has two restaurants named after his creation — one on Sanibel and one across the bridge on the mainland. You'll find directions on the site, where you can learn more about White's earlier career as a fishing guide and his other missions — to share the love of all things maritime, and to take baseball equipment to Cuban kids.

This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2009.