Deceived

At the start of bestseller White’s suspenseful second Hannah Smith novel (after 2012’s Gone), a 100-pound tarpon leaps out of the water onto Smith’s charter boat, knocking two men overboard, and Smith spots a shark heading their way. The scene sets the tone for this entertaining crime thriller in which Smith, drawn into a 20-year-old murder case and a real estate scam targeting senior citizens, tangles with pit bulls, an ax-wielding nemesis wearing a mask and a raincoat, and an industrial shredder and its drug-crazed operator. Doc Ford, the star of Night Moves and 19 other White novels, occasionally pops up as Smith’s love interest, but it’s Smith’s gutsy, no-nonsense attitude and fierce loyalty to her mother, Loretta, and her crime-solving pal, deputy sheriff Liberty Tupplemeyer, that gives the story its heart. White’s evocative descriptions of life on Florida’s Gulf Coast, both human and animal, win this series its rightful place in the ever-popular Florida crime fiction genre. Author tour. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Sept.)