Mean High Tide

James Wilson Hall

Delacorte Press, 1994 - Fiction - 371 pages

James W. Hall, the nationally best-selling author of Hard Aground and Bones of Coral, plunges deeper into the clear blue waters and wild terrain of southern Florida in an explosive new novel. By turns hard-bitten, raw, romantic, darkly comic, and lyrical, Mean High Tide is at once a taut, intricate thriller and an intensely human story in which parents and children, love and revenge, obsession and madness converge and tragically collide. Mean High Tide brings back Thorn, the dark, brooding hero of Tropical Freeze and Under Cover of Daylight. Now Thorn finds himself shaken out of his still house and into a chaotic world by an event so shattering that no part of his life is left untouched. A loner who ties lures for a subsistence income and fishes the coastal shallows, Thorn resides in harmony with the delicate ecosystem of sea and shore around him, and shares his life with the beautiful former TV careerwoman Darcy Richards. During his two years with Darcy, Thorn has found a contentment his violent past never before allowed him. Then her brutal murder rips it all away. In the skewed moral climate of the Keys, Thorn attempts to salvage his sanity and a raison d'etre by tracking down her killer. But reminiscent of the great film noir Chinatown, Thorn's investigation of a single violent act plunges him into a greater darkness, and in it lurks a mysterious young woman - Sylvie, at once androgynous and earthy, innocent and carnal. Her plea for help soon has Thorn unravelling a skein of wider corruption, hidden crimes, and shocking secrets between husbands and wives, between fathers and daughters. Mean High Tide is James Hall's most astonishing work yet, a novel that lays bare the extraordinarygifts of a master of his craft, a reading experience that you will not soon forget.

Contents

• Section 1: 1
• Section 2: 15
• Section 3: 25

About the author

James W. Hall was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After graduating from Eckerd College in Florida and earning additional degrees from John Hopkins University and the University of Utah, He began to write poetry. Among his published books of poetry are The Lady from the Dark Green Hills, The Mating Reflex, and False Statements. Following his successful 20-year career as a poet, he decided it was time to switch gears and try his hand at writing fictional crime novels. He published his first novel, Under Cover of Daylight, in 1987. Since then he has written over 15 novels including the Thorn Mysteries series, Bones of Coral, Hard Aground, Rough Draft, and Forests of the Night. Several of his novels have been optioned for film and he has written screenplays for two of those projects. He is a professor of literature and writing at Florida International University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mean High Tide; Volume 3 of Thorn P.I; Thorn Series
• Author: James Wilson Hall
• Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1994
• ISBN: 0385307985, 9780385307987
• Length: 371 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General; Fiction / Southern