Blackwater Sound: Summary and book reviews of Blackwater Sound by James Hall, plus links to an excerpt from Blackwater Sound and a biography of James Hall.
Blackwater Sound
by James W. Hall
Hardcover: Jan 2002,
339 pages.
Paperback: Nov 2002,
368 pages.
The Braswell Family had everything people would kill for: money, looks, power. Until their eldest son, the family's shining light, died in a bizarre fishing accident. When he disappeared--hauled into the depths by the giant marlin he had been fighting--he took with him a secret so corrupt that it could destroy the Braswells.
Ten years later, a huge airliner crashes in the steamy shallows off the Florida coast. Helping pull survivors from the water, Thorn finds himself drawn in a twisted conspiracy: someone has developed a high-tech weapon capable of destroying electrical systems in a powerful flash. The terrorist potential is huge. How are the secretive Braswells and their family-owned company, MicroDyne, involved? And what does it have to do with the family's obsessive hunt for the great marlin that killed their golden boy?
With the Braswells, James W. Hall introduces one of the most evil and dysfuntional families in the history of fiction. And along with Thorn, he brings back favorite characters from his earlier books, including Alexandra Rafferty and her father, Lawton Collins, a retired and increasingly dotty former police investigator whose methods of investigation result in his kidnapping. A story that bristles with all the heat and tension of a tropical Florida summer, Blackwater Sound is destined to rank among the greatest suspense thrillers of the new decade.
People Magazine
a tasty new thriller...[with a] blend of high-tech suspense and South Florida sultriness ....Catch of the day.
Booklist - Bill Ott
Hall is one of the very best thriller writers alive. He has taken the popular sub-genre of Florida noir further into the heart of darkness than have any of his contemporaries.
Publishers Weekly
Hall’s dangerous bone-fishing iconoclast Thorn (Under Cover of Daylight, etc.) and gorgeous police photographer Alexandra Rafferty (Body Language) join forces in a thriller that should swell the author’s ranks of admirers. From dramatic beginning to chilling ending, Hall’s never been better.
Library Journal
Backed by a national author tour and ad campaign, with pre-pub raves from Dennis Lahane, James Lee Burke, Robert Crais, Scott Turow and Michael Connelly, this crime novel seems destined for bestseller-dom.
Dennis Lehane
... sleek and relentlessly propulsive...
James Lee Burke
...no one has written more lyrically of the Gulfstream since Ernest Hemmingway...a wonderful reading experience...
Robert Crais, bestselling author of L.A. Requiem and Demolition Angel
No writer working today...more clearly evokes the shadows and loss that hide within the human heart.
Scott Turow, bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof
If you don't know the fine suspense novels of James W. Hall, this will get you off to a rousing start.
Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of A Darkness More Than Night and Angels Flight
With beautiful prose and a heavily muscled story, it moves with the grandeur and unpredictability of a [killer] marlin.
Recent Reader Reviews
Review (not rated)
by M. Bailey
I read the Prologue and had an internal debate as to whether or not I would actually continue reading. While there is some good descriptions about techniques for deep-sea fishing, the rest of the chapter seemed unlikely and forced. I was... Read More
Rated of 5
by Jane Marter
It's a terrific novel. I don't even like marlin fishing, but Mr. Hall made me interested in that subject. Great characters, funny and razor sharp dialog, wonderful descriptions of places. A moving portrait of a family that has lost its center... Read More
Rated of 5
by L'Jon I was really disappointed with this book, it started off with a bang and fizzled shortly thereafer. I just wanted it too end, yet it dragged on. The plot could have been better developed, it just never really "went" anywhere.
At once elegant and enormously suspenseful, Steve Hamilton's Blood Is the Sky heralds his arrival as one of the premier crime writers working today.
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Dennis Lehane
of 5
by Jane Marter
of 5
by L'Jon
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