Randy Wayne White was born in 1950 in Ashland, Ohio. After graduating high school and traveling for five years, he settled in southwest Florida and took a job at the Fort Myers News-Press. During his four-year tenure at the paper, he got his captain’s license and bought a used charter boat and became a fishing guide.
White was working as a fishing guide in Sanibel Island, when “the federal government decided to close our bay to powerboat traffic – permanently,” according to his web bio,
“I was out of a job,” White wrote. “Worse, I wasn’t qualified to do anything but drive a boat.”
With a family to support, White continued his charter business from hotel parking lots, but also turned to writing, publishing his first novel “Sanibel Flats” in 1990.
More than 30 years later, White has written more than 50 books including the Doc Ford and Hannah Smith series.
He also owns Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille in Sanibel Island.
Books by Randy Wayne White
Key West Connection
Published: 1981Ex–Navy SEAL Dusky MacMorgan survived a military hell only to find it again where he least expected it—as a fisherman trolling the Gulf Stream in his thirty-foot clipper. His new life is shattered when a psychotic pack of drug runners turns the turquoise waters red with the blood of his…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
The Deep Six
Published: 1981Gifford Remus is well known as an eccentric scavenger in Key West, combing the ocean, beaches, and byways for anything of interest. But the gold chain he shows to Dusky MacMorgan is no ordinary trinket—it’s the key to finding a long-lost treasure at the bottom of the sea. Before MacMorgan…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
Cuban Death-Lift
Published: 1981When Fidel Castro allows thousands of Cubans to depart for America in the Mariel Boatlift, he exports the worst criminals and undesirables of his country along with them. To monitor the situation, the CIA sends infiltrators to Cuba-where they vanish without a trace. In desperation, the Agency turns to ex-Navy…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
The Deadlier Sex
Published: 1981Dusty MacMorgan and his pal Westy O’Davis are fishing along South Florida’s Ten Thousand Island coast when they make a most unusual catch-a naked woman. And no sooner do they get her on board than a nearby trawler explodes. Even more remarkable is the story the waterborne beauty tells upon…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
Assassin’s Shadow
Published: 1981MacMorgan has been many things to many people in his lifetime: warrior, adventurer, lover, hell-raiser, and hero. Now, the U.S. government wants him to be something else—an assassin. At the ultra-exclusive Florida resort of St. Carib, the rich, famous, and elite flock to have their bodies sculpted and scalpeled to perfection.…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
Everglades Assault
Published: 1982MacMorgan is living the good life on his stilt house a mile off Fleming Key. The skies are as blue as the sea, and there’s not a cloud in the sky. But there’s a storm coming in the form of the beautiful April Yarborough. She’s the daughter of an old…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
Grand Cayman Slam
Published: 1982When Dusky gets a call for help from his old buddy Capt. Wes O’Davis, he knows there’s big trouble brewing. O’Davis has been set up to take the fall on a murder rap by a gang of kidnappers whose latest victim is the son of Sir Conan James and Lady…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Dusky MacMorgan , Randy Wayne White
Sanibel Flats
Published: 1990In Sanibel Flats, the first of Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford series novels, ex-CIA agent Marion “Doc” Ford is enjoying his new life as a marine biologist on the Dinkins Bay Marina, when high school friend Rafe Hollins calls him for help when his son is kidnapped. When Ford agrees…Read More
Categories: Action and Adventure Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
The Heat Islands
Published: 1992Marine biologist and former secret operative Doc Ford is lazily poling his skiff along Southwest Florida’s flat copper sea in search of sea anemones when he runs into the body of the most hated man on Sanibel Island: Marvin Rios. But when the community’s simplest and sweetest resident is arrested…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
The Man Who Invented Florida
Published: 1993When solitary marine biologist Doc Ford focused his telescope on the woman in the white boat, he didn’t know his life was about to be capsized: that his conniving uncle, Tucker Gatrell, would discover the Fountain of Youth, that the National Enquirer would write about it, and that the law would beat…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Captiva
Published: 1996Former government agent-turned-marine biologist Doc Ford finds himself unable to maintain his neutrality when a battle between Florida’s sport and commercial fishermen escalates into arson and murder.Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
North of Havana
Published: 1997White’s newest thriller takes Doc Ford to Havana, where his friend is being held by the Cuban government. Still haunted by his suspected involvement in a plot against Castro, Ford ventures to Cuba–where he finds himself entangled in a web of murder, revenge, and assassination.Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
The Mangrove Coast
Published: 1998Marine Biologist Doc Ford is hot on the trail of a dead friend’s wife. Apparently, the woman vanished into the steaming jungles of South America guided by a truly disgusting specimen of humanity. From Florida to Columbia and Panama, Doc traces their path, but a shadowy figure is following him…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Ten Thousand Islands
Published: 2000Fifteen years ago, a teenage girl found an ancient gold medallion on a small island off the Florida gulf coast. Soon she was having nightmares and later was found hanging from a tree. Although the death was ruled a suicide, the girl’s mother, Della, is now sure there was foul…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Shark River
Published: 2001Marine biologist Doc Ford is spending two easy weeks on luxurious Guava Key compiling data. But when two young women at the resort are attacked, Doc comes to their rescue. In an instant, he is pulled into an international plan of revenge that becomes more deadly with each passing hour.…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Twelve Mile Limit
Published: 2002t starts out as a fun excursion for four divers off the Florida coast. Two days later only one is found alive-naked atop a light tower in the Gulf of Mexico. What happened during those 48 hours? Doc Ford thinks he’s prepared for the truth. He isn’t.Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Everglades
Published: 2003Doc Ford returns to his stilt house on Dinkin’s Bay to find an old friend and one-time lover waiting for him. Her real-estate developer husband has disappeared and been pronounced dead, and she’s sure there’s worse to follow-and she’s right. Following the trail, Ford ends up deep in the Everglades,…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Tampa Burn
Published: 2004When Balserio, a thuggish one-time dictator, out of power in his own country and consumed by a desire for revenge, kidnaps the young son of his wife, Pilar, the result of a love affair with Doc Ford, Ford must risk everything to rescue the boy from Balserio’s new Florida home…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Dead of Night
Published: 2005It starts with a simple request: check up on the mysteriously reclusive biologist brother of an old friend. But what Doc Ford stumbles upon in the doctor’s secluded island home is a nightmare. He has hanged himself—and his body is host to a rare strain of feeding, breathing parasites. It’s…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Dark Light
Published: 2006A Category 4 hurricane has swept the west coast of Florida, creating havoc, changing lives, and reshaping the ocean bottom. Well-known reefs and wrecks have been covered—and new ones have emerged. From one such wreck, marine biologist Doc Ford and his friends make a chance discovery that will have a…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Hunter’s Moon
Published: 2007Doc Ford saves a former President of the United States from assassination-and regrets it. Months ago, Kal Wilson’s wife was killed in a plane crash. President Wilson is sure it was no accident-and he wants revenge. He needs Doc Ford to spring him loose from the watchful eye of the…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Black Widow
Published: 2008Doc Ford is drawn into a deadly battle when his goddaughter Shay is blackmailed. Someone filmed her at an out-of-control bachelorette party?and they want big money to keep it quiet. When Ford investigates, he finds that the woman responsible is an agent of corruption unlike any Ford has ever encountered…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Dead Silence
Published: 2009When his U.S. senator girlfriend is kidnapped during an assassination attempt outside the Explorers Club in New York City, Doc Ford sets out on a rescue mission in the Florida Keys with his friend Tomlinson; an effort that is further complicated by the kidnapper’s claims that the senator has been…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Deep Shadow
Published: 2010Doc Ford wrestles more than one kind of demon in this stunning novel from the New York Times-best-selling author. Many dangers lurk in the deep – the worst of them are human. Thirty minutes into what should have been an easy, beginner-level dive in a remote Florida lake, the rim of…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Night Vision
Published: 2011Doc Ford is on a collision course with death in this extraordinary new novel from the New York Times best-selling author. A lot is going on in the trailer park known as Little Guadalajara, inhabited principally by illegal laborers. The park manager is the hired gun of a financial syndicate that wants…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Night Moves
Published: 2012Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Gone
Published: 2012Hannah Smith is a tall, strong, formidable Florida woman, the descendant of generations of strong Florida women. She makes her living as a fishing guide, but her friends, neighbors, and clients also know her as an uncommonly resourceful woman with a keen sense of justice, as someone who can’t be…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Hannah Smith , Randy Wayne White
Chasing Midnight
Published: 2012It began peacefully enough, on one of Florida’s private islands. At a reception hosted by a notorious Russian black marketeer, Doc Ford uses darkness, and his friend Tomlinson, as cover to get an underwater look at the billionaire’s yacht. By the time Ford surfaces, everything has changed. Environmental extremists have…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Deceived
Published: 2013An almost twenty-year-old unsolved murder from Florida’s pot-hauling days gets Hannah Smith’s attention, but so does a more immediate problem. A private museum devoted solely to the state’s earliest settlers and pioneers has been announced, and many of Hannah’s friends and neighbors in Sulfur Wells are being pressured to make…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Hannah Smith , Randy Wayne White
Bone Deep
Published: 2014When a Crow Indian acquaintance of Tomlinson’s asks him to help recover a relic stolen from his tribe, Doc Ford is happy to tag along – but neither Doc nor Tomlinson realize what they’ve let themselves in for. Their search takes them to the part of Central Florida known as…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Haunted
Published: 2014The house is historic, some say haunted. It is also slated to be razed and replaced by condos, unless Hannah Smith can do something about it. She’s been hired by a wealthy Palm Beach widow to prove that the house’s seller didn’t disclose everything he knew about the place when…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Hannah Smith , Randy Wayne White
Cuba Straits
Published: 2015Doc Ford’s old friend, General Juan Garcia, has gone into the lucrative business of smuggling Cuban baseball players into the US. He is also feasting on profits made by buying historical treasures for pennies on the dollar. He prefers what dealers call HPC items – high-profile collectibles – but when…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Deep Blue
Published: 2016On a moonless night on Sanibel Island, Florida, marine biologist Marion “Doc” Ford carefully watches a video of a hooded man executing three hostages. The man is an American working with ISIS, and in the next few days, it’ll be Ford’s job, as part of his shadowy second life, to…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Seduced
Published: 2016A fishing guide and part-time investigator, Hannah Smith is a tall, strong Florida woman descended from many generations of the same. But the problem before her now is much older even than that. Five hundred years ago, Spanish conquistadors planted the first orange seeds in Florida, but now the whole…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Hannah Smith , Randy Wayne White
Mangrove Lightning
Published: 2017Doc Ford has been involved in many strange cases. This may be one of the strangest. A legendary charter captain and guide named Tootsie Barlow has come to him, muttering about a curse. The members of his extended family have suffered a bizarre series of attacks, and Barlow is convinced…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Caribbean Rim
Published: 2018Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends out of jams occasionally, but he’s never faced a situation like this. His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks most of his life, but now he’s run afoul of the Florida Division of Historical Resources. Its…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Salt River
Published: 2020Marine biologist and former government agent Doc Ford is sure he’s beyond the point of being surprised by his longtime pal Tomlinson’s madcap tales of his misspent youth. But he’s stunned anew when avowed bachelor Tomlinson reveals that as a younger man strapped for cash, he’d unwittingly fathered multiple children…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Doc Ford , Randy Wayne White
Fins
Published: 2020The world’s shark population is in trouble for a sad, simple reason: shark fin soup. And although it’s illegal, poachers have been targeting Florida’s biannual migration of blacktip sharks. Marine biologist Doc Ford needs some assistance protecting the sharks and enlists the help of three kids―Luke, Maribel and Sabina. Luke…Read More
Categories: Juvenile Fiction , Randy Wayne White , Sharks Incorporated
Stingers
Published: 2021Marine biologist Doc Ford invites Maribel, Luke, and Sabina to a remote island in the Bahamas where lionfish, a beautiful and venomous inhabitant of the South Pacific that has invaded Florida and the Caribbean, are not just upsetting the balance of nature by damaging the coral reefs—their sting has put…Read More
Categories: Juvenile Fiction , Randy Wayne White , Sharks Incorporated