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Rick Boyer
THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS A Doc Adams Thriller • Pub. Date: July 1989 • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group • Format: Mass Market Paperback • Pub. Date: July 1989 • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group • Format: Mass Market Paperback, 288pp • Series: Doc Adams Series • ISBN-13: 9780804104500 • ISBN: 0804104506 Reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com ($1.00) 06/11/2010 The best, certainly the most evocative, thing about Rick Boyer's Doc Adams thriller, THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS, may be its title. When any whale sounds, the swirl left in the water, its "footprint," is unique. Whales' footprints are invoked from time to time in a thriller that sees one of Doc's two sons suspected of murdering a friend. Doc wants to know what good a clue like a whale's footprint is, that disappears. "Everything disappears, Dad, given time" (Ch. 15). And again, Doc shows his State police brother-in-law Joe "... the inverted cone of swirling brine and foam. The whale's footprint ... the whale's calling card he leaves when it sounds." Joe's reaction: "Some footprint, Doc, ... Now you see it, now you don't. That's what this Cunnigham case reminds me of. ... Leads keep appearing and then disappearing" (Ch. 20) ***** So if you grow bored with unraveling the mystery, there is always plenty about whales, as Doc's son is spending the summer studying them off Cape Cod. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/cheap-book/the-whale-39-s-footprints -boyer-rick~27d2d~150811712 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 06/11/2010 HEADLINE: MOBY DICK Lite? Rating of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS * * * * There are nine Doc Adams Thrillers by North Carolina writer Rick Boyer. Cape Cod Bay, Greater Boston and environs are treated in loving detail throughout the series. I have read novels one, five and seven. THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS (1988) is number five. I enjoyed number five a bit better than number one (BILLINGSGATE SHOAL - 1982). That is perhaps because author Boyer spent so much time in BILLINGSGATE SHOAL introducing his characters that my mind wandered from the plot and the huge dollops of rough and tumble action. Now, it's different: before evening turning a page of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS, I know I am in a series. I know whom to expect to revisit. Just as I would with a Dagwood and Blondie cartoon or one of Alexandre Dumas's THREE MUSKETEERS yarns. -- There is 50-ish Doc Adams, dental surgeon, just past his first mid-life crisis. -- There is his sexy wife Mary. -- They have two college age sons. -- We will meet once more Doc's philanthropic psychiatrist buddy Moe Abrams, -- also an ex Special Forces Lithuanian-American that Doc works out with in a Boston gym, and on and on. So we should have more time in THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS to concentrate on unraveling the plot. Doc's son Jack is a murder suspect. He and another young man named Andy Cunningham are temp-ing one summer at privately owned Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) at the southwest corner of Cape Cod. And both young men had loved a young whale watcher named Alice. Andy Dies after taking a fatal combination of prescription medicines. To get his son off the hook, Doc Adams has to find the real killer. Clues lead him not just to beautiful Alice but also to Professor Hartzell, a mad scientist who thinks his students are trying to steal his ideas. If the not terribly complicated murder mystery does not hold you, there is plenty about whales. Young Jack's love of the giant beasts dates from 1970 when he was six and pilot whales were stranded on a beach near Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Now murder suspect Jack is studying whales as a researcher at the WHOI. Every whale, Jack tells us, has a unique identifying mark, including the ripple patterns they make when they "sound" or dive. Those ripples are their unique "footprints," as unique as fingerprints for humans. Whale's footprints are made a conscious metaphor for the novel's plots in which clues appear, disappear beneath the surface and reappear elsewhere. THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS is a better than average detection thriller. If you care about Doc's family, that gives you an extra motive to root for young Jack. And if you love whales, well this novel might come across as MOBY DICK lite! -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/reviews/rick_boyer_ the_whale_s_footprints-1475644.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com HEADLINE: "When they sound, whales always leave footprints" reviewer's rating of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS: * * * *, rounded up from 3.7 stars Posted 06/13/10: Whales are not as central to Rick Boyer's 1988 thriller, THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS, as they are to Herman Melville's 1851 MOBY DICK. But neither book would be much without those great beasts. 50-ish Concord, Massachusetts oral surgeon Charles "Doc" Adams and wife Mary have two nearly grown sons, Jack and three years younger Tony. Jack had been fascinated by whales since an encounter as a six-year old with a group of some 23 20-foot long pilot whales stranded on a beach near Wellfleet on the western side of Cape Cod. Everyone knew that once he could Jack would make a living in and around Woods Hole on Cape Cod following whales' footprints -- the unique signatures each leaves whirling after it has dived beneath the waves. "When they sound, whales always leave footprints" (Ch. 15). At novel's beginning one August 11th, Jack is working at Woods Hole in BUMP, Boston University Marine Program, studying whales' intelligence and language. His parents have a summer cottage near Wellfleet. As a hurricane streams up from the south, Jack and his new friend and roommate Andy Cunningham, who is working this summer at MBL, Marine Biological Laboratory, drive up to visit Doc and Mary. Andy dies mysteriously. Doc suspects that someone has tampered with Andy's medications for seizures. The police agree and suspect young Jack. To clear his son, Doc soon finds himself involved with office politics in the laboratory where Andy had worked and where he is suspected of theft of ideas belonging to the resident "mad" scientist. A young mobster who had loaned Andy money for gambling debts also enters the picture. Danger abounds and thrills as well as the mystery deepens. This is a better than average detective thriller, lifted to a higher literary level by its scenes of whales at play and by the thought that a whale's footprint becomes the metaphor for a murder case in which clues appear, disappear, dive beneath the surface and reappear somewhere else. -OOO- Other books also recommended: -- John Lister-Kaye - THE WHITE ISLAND. -- Sir Walter Scott - THE PIRATE. -- Rick Boyer - BILLINGSGATE SHOAL. -- Herman Melville - MOBY DICK. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Whales-Footprints/Rick-Boyer/ e/9780804104500/?itm=4&USRI=rick+boyer+-+the+whale%27s+footprints =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 6/13/10 review title: "The key is ... the Minerals Management Service" Rating of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS * * * * "The key ... to any mineral
exploration is the Minerals Management Service, a federal agency that
is in charge of offering drilling leases for sale at auction. The
continental shelf is part of the exclusive economic zone set up by the
president in eighty-three. ...The government has regulatory power
over it" (Ch.24).
The words above furnish one of scores of clue to a young man's murder unraveled in Rick Perry's 1988 detective thriller, THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS. Now where in the spring of 2010 have any readers heard of the Federal Mineral Management Service (MMS)? You have it! It was regulating when there was a mammoth oil eruption from a well head 5,000 feet under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico not all that far from the mouth of the MIssissippi River. If you think that MMS was a lax enforcer in 2010, too cozy with the oil business it was supposed to regulate, well, open THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS to see if things were better in late 1980s Cape Cod Bay area, Massachusetts. As usual, in the nine-part Doc Adams mystery series, eastern Massachusetts is part of the action. Hero Doctor Charles Adams lives in Concord, with time for a summer cottage on the western side of Cape Cod. Doc and wife Mary are in the cottage in early August expecting their young scientist son Jack to spend a weekend away from his work at Woods Hole studying the intelligence and language of whales. A major storm is sweeping up from the south, making the parents worry for Jack and his roommate Andy Cunningham who are racing a car up ahead of the storm. Things only get worse when Andy is found dead the next day in the cottage's guest bedroom. Doc senses foul play. The police agree and suddenly Doc's son Jack is the main suspect in a homicide. To clear his son, Doc Adams wades through clues, red herrings, crossing swords with a mobster, his son's girlfriend and her father, a mad scientist and, peripherally, with the Minerals Management Service. Whales are always nearby in the background and in Jack's career. When one sounds, it leaves a unique "footprint" as big as a living room in the waves it has just left behind and above. As Doc's brother-in-law Joe, a State Police Officer notes: like a whale's footprints, clues come, they disappear without lasting trace. And then they return in a new place. THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS has elements of crimes other than murder: illegal oil drilling, bribery, theft of documents and downright madness. Enjoy! Your Tags: federal minerals management service, cape cod, wood hole, doc adams, rick boyer -OOO- http://www.amazon.com/Whales-Footprints-Adams-Suspense-Novel/ dp/0517074052/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276469762&sr=1-1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com review title: What the Minerals Management Service Was Doing Before OKaying British Petroleum Written: Jun 14 '10 (Updated Jun 14 '10) Product rating of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS: * * * * Pros: Clues and red herrings keep you honestly guessing till Chapter 29. All about whales. Cons: No MOBY DICK. Whale's footprints are too weak a metaphor for solving a murder. The Bottom Line: I liked this fifth of the nine Doc Adams thrillers better than the first. You already know the characters, none, alas, three dimensional. So concentrate on murder and whales. aohcapablanca's Full Review: Rick Boyer - The Whale's Footprint As readers of Rick Boyer's 1988 detective thriller BILLINGSGATE SHOAL (see my review at http://www0.epinions.com/review/Billingsgate_Shoal_epi/content_512600018564) and other Doc Adams thrillers know, Charles Adams, M.D., is an oral surgeon who lives and practices in Concord, Massachusetts. He and his luscious wife Mary also have a summer home in North Eastham on the lee side of Cape Cod. Their two young adult sons Jack and Tony now work in the greater Boston area and visit their parents frequently. In 1970 Jackie was six and Tony was three. There was a great stranding of pilot whales on the beach near Wellfleet on Cape Cod Bay. Since then Jack has never imagined a life not devoted to the creatures. Currently he is on the staff of a research group at Wood Hole studying cetacean intelligence and languages. This dedication to giant sea mammals launches Jack's Homeric aristeia of sorts, once he is suspected of the fiendishly clever murder of his roommate Andy Cunningham. More of that anon. Meanwhile: Like MOBY DICK, Rick Boyer's 1988 Doc Adams thriller, THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS tells a lot about whales. -- OF WHALES Out in the depths off Cape Cod 30 miles from shore "...
in the several hundred feet of cold darkness, giant forms rushed
through the water, six or seven times the mass of the biggest African
bull elephants ... the tail was horizontal, with flukes set wide like
the wings of a jet, each the size and shape of a small dingy, measuring
nine feet from tip to tip. ...Maybe fifty feet (in body length)."
Chapter 15 goes on describing whales, their dangerous environment and their willingness to be friendly to humans who study them with love. That chapter also begins to explain the novel's title. "Where
the two whales had sounded was a pair of swirling depressions in the
sea, two whirlpools as wide as living rooms: the whales' footprints.
When they sound whales always leave footprints. .. They remained
perhaps half a minute then disappeared."
In Chapter 20, Doc Adams's State police officer brother in law Joe is shown whales' footprints in the sea, "the whale's calling card he leaves when he sounds." Joe imagines that the clues in the Cunningham murder case resemble a whale's footprints. "Leads keep appearing and then disappearing. Driving us nuts." -- OF THE CUNNINGHAM MURDER CASE With son Jack about to go on trial for his roommate's alleged murder, Doc Adams springs into energetic amateur sleuthing to find the real killer. ---- Is it a mad scientist, Dr. Lionel Hartzell, at Wood Hole testing whether silver can be strained from sea water in commercial quantities by tunicates aka sea squirts? Hartzell is convinced that his lab assistant Andy Cunningham had been stealing his ideas. ---- Another suspect is beauteous young Alice Henderson, deceased Andy's girl friend. Andy and Jack Adams had come to blows over Alice. ----From Alice the trail leads Doc and brother in law Joe to her brother, then to their wildcatting father, ---- then to an oil drilling syndicate ---- and, horrors, also to the "Mineral Management Service, a federal agency that is in charge of
offering drilling leases for sale at auction. The continental shelf is
part of the exclusive economic zone set up by the president in
eighty-three. ... The government has regulatory power over it." The
Minerals Management Service (MMS) is "The key to any mineral
exploration" (Ch. 24).
Maybe MMS is or is not the key to the Cunningham murder. But as late as Chapter 24 the murderer (if there was a murderer in a case where the victim simply took a wrong combination of medicines for his mild epilepsy), we cannot yet make an intelligent guess at "whodunnit." CLARIFICATION: In case you have been media-deprived for the past two months, the MMS (Minerals Mining Service) is the agency that permitted (for a large fee) British Petroleum to drill for oil five thousand feet down in the Gulf of Mexico, not very far from the coastline of Lousiana. And, as I write, the oil is still gushing up after an explosion and the sinking of the above-water drilling barge and rig. Also the MMS director has resigned and MMS reforms are being debated in Congress. In THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS we see a handful of crooks finding it pretty easy to get around MMS's ban on drilling around Cape Cod. This is a good yarn. The whales rate five STARS. The detection is notably better than average and fair in its convolutions. Just a bit slow, perhaps. 3.8 rounding up to 4.0 STARS. A NOTE ON MY REVIEW'S TITLE: A reader has objected to my book review as being "off subject." Possibly because my review title is "What the Minerals Management Service Was Doing Before OKaying British Petroleum." Let us stipulate that author Rick Boyer strews about his narrative +/- 50 clues and red herrings as to whodunnit. I made one of those clues -- efforts in the 1980s to pull the wool over the Minerals Management Service (MMS) -- stand for all the clues and red herrings in a work of fiction. When I was in high school over half a century ago, such usage was called synecdoche, or letting a part of a collection stand for the whole collection. Synecdoche was judged to be clever when Homer or Vergil used it. Perhaps I tried to be too clever to be helpful to readers. At least the MMS is in the book and it plays a not inconsiderable role among major clues in a mystery thriller. Cheers! Thank you, Category Lead Pestyside/Patsy for making THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS reviewable for epinions. -OOO- Recommended: Yes http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Rick_Boyer_The_Whale_s_Footprint_epi COMMENTS
on Review (as of 06/14/2010)
Comments on What the Minerals Management Service Was Doing Before OKaying British Petroleum" (4 total) Comment Sorted by Date Written Re: Re: Off Topic? (Delete your comment) by aohcapablanca Dear thewisefool/khendra, Thanks for reading and commenting! You wrote: "It's about whales and a murder mystery from what I gathered." That is correct. I am not sure why Rick Boyer made so much of the whales, but he did. And it is very well written. Most of Boyer's Doc Adams novels (there are nine of them) portray life in and around Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This one (novel five in the series) may have been the time, Boyer thought, to bring in whales for local color. In any event he writes well of them. The role of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) in THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS is as signficant as any other clue or red herring in the novel. In the seventies oil deposits had allegedly been discovered on privately owned land on small, barely inhabited Tuckernuck Island near Nantucket. The alleged legal status of drilling there can make a reader's eyes glaze. But some bad guys decide to drill there in secret and it might have given them a motive to bump off young Andy Cunningham. In any event Doc Adams and his ex "black box operations" friends sneak on to the island to document illegal drilling. For better or for worse, I find Rick Boyer's THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS growing on me. I am happy to be reading a good writer whose heyday seems over. And at the same time making his worth a little bit better known. Cordially, AOHCAPABLANCA/Patrick K Jun 14 '10 1:59 pm PDT Re: Off Topic? (Delete your comment) by aohcapablanca Dear bvckvs, Thank you for commenting! Reading a comment by an epinionator completely new to me is a pleasant surprise. I shall make an effort to familiarize myself with your reviews. I love to be shaken out a writing rut. Since pretty much the same score or more of epinionators read my reviews, I assume they expect me to write a BOOK review (or an occasional review of a HOTEL/MOTEL). I also assumed that a reader whose eyes were carried one line down on epinions from my review's TITLE to its OBJECT ("Rick Boyer - The Whale's Footprint") would see that my review was about a book by Rick Boyer, well known mystery writer and Edgar Award recipient. Probably you would have made the connection if the author had been better known, Agatha Christie, say, or Dashiell Hammett. My mistake. Sorry. You wrote of my review of Boyer's fiction: "I totally don't get the connection between MMS and the story. In fact, although the phraseology seemed colorful, I still have no idea what the book was about after reading the review." That is quite an indictment of at least one if not both of us! Sorry to have misled you. I was basically trying to give enough of a sense of THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS content and style for a reader to decide whether to read the book or not. He/she might read it for the whales or he/she might read it for the unraveling of an alleged murder. And the whales and the murder are connected -- not tightly enough connected for my purist taste. But de gustibus non est disputandum. I hope I am not spoiling the story by spinning out now more precisely how the MMS plays a role in a 1980s murder thriller. But here goes: Some of the fictional bad guys in THE WHALE'S FOOTPRINTS, not unskillfully in my judgment, concoct a plan to get around the MMS and to drill illegally but profitably for oil in a forbidden area. Their lawyers will stall off the MMS long enough for a quick profit, which the naughty consortium badly needs. Far-fetched? Read the book and judge for yourself! You inspired me to look again at my review and then reissue it for greater clarity (I hope), with heavily highlighted (but otherwise unaltered) phrases which indicated that we are dealing with a murder mystery involving drilling for oil (e.g. "wildcatter"). I also added an explanation clarifying, I pray, my use of the figure of speech called synecdoche in selecting the review's title: i. e., one major clue (role of MMS) selected to stand in for a body of a few score more clues. I found it serendipitous that a novel of 1988 made a fair amount of the Minerals Management Service so much in the news these days. Again, warm thanks for nudging me out of a comfortable rut. At my age, leaving ruts feels darn good. Cordially, AOHCAPABLANCA/Patrick K Jun 14 '10 1:37 pm PDT Re: Off Topic? (Reply to this comment) by thewisefool It's about whales and a murder mystery from what I gathered. The MMS commentary was added toward the end of the review, so I personally didn't feel it was OT given the preceding paragraphs. Perhaps there's no connection, but if the reviewer thinks there is one, he is staying on topic in his viewpoint. I suppose more depth and context could be added about the plot to make the review come off as more cohesive, but I do like the incorporation of selected passages from some of the chapters to give an idea of the book and writing style. Jun 14 '10 12:05 pm PDT Off Topic? (Reply to this comment) by bvckvs I'm all for bashing MMS, but I totally don't get the connection between MMS and the story. In fact, although the phraseology seemed colorful, I still have no idea what the book was about after reading the review. Jun 14 '10 9:12 am PDT =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/boyer_whale.html |