Tue 21 Mar 2017
A 1001 Midnights Review: RICK BOYER – Billingsgate Shoal.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[7] Comments
by Kathleen L. Maio
RICK BOYER – Billingsgate Shoal. Doc Adams #1. Houghton Miff|in, hardcover, 1982. Warner Books, paperback, 1985; Fawcett, paperback, 1989.
Rick Boyer won an Edgar for this, his first mystery novel — deserved recognition for a complex suspense novel set in coastal and suburban Massachusetts.
Charles (“Doc”) Adams is a medical doctor turned oral surgeon. He is middle-aged, affluent, happily married, and intensely dissatisfied with his life. His depression and insomnia are symptoms of his mid-life crisis. The cure is worse than the disease, however, as Doc is thrown headlong into a very violent adventure. It starts with an early-morning sighting of a stranded fishing vessel on the title shoal, continues with the death of a young scuba diver who tries to check out the boat for Adams, and eventually escalates to a kill-or-die confrontation between Doc and the villains.
Billingsgate Shoal has a little bit of everything for everybody. There is hidden treasure, political intrigue, and a murder mystery. There is even a good deal of gore for those who like their thrillers tough and bloody. But it is the believable and very personable voice of Boyer’s amateur sleuth that makes even the more outrageous elements of his plot come together in a way that seems realistic and truly suspenseful.
Boyer’s second novel, The Penny Ferry (1984), a case focusing on present-day evidence of the guilt/innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, is proof that Boyer’s talents are substantial and that Doc Adams has staying power as series sleuth.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
The Doc Adams series —
Billingsgate Shoal (1982)
The Penny Ferry (1984)
The Daisy Ducks (1986)
Moscow Metal (1987)
The Whale’s Footprints (1988)
Gone to Earth (1990)
Yellow Bird (1991)
Pirate Trade (1994)
The Man Who Whispered (1998)
March 21st, 2017 at 5:11 pm
I thought the first two books were really well done, just stretched credibility when an oral surgeon/dentist is solving his third murder.
March 21st, 2017 at 6:22 pm
I’ve read only one — it wasn’t this one — and what I don’t remember is what kind of background Adams might have had before becoming a dentist.
I seem to recall there being something in his past that would justify his being able to survive the horrific scrapes he got himself into, but your comment tells me that there wasn’t.
March 21st, 2017 at 7:59 pm
About Doc Adams, in an online interview, Rick Boyer said:
“Doc Adams is me in more extraordinary circumstances. So that made it easier for me. I was pretending to be somebody else. But the experiences are different with Doc. Things happen with Doc; people come after him. With Doc, I tried to combine the unexceptional guy, basically a suburbanite, who runs into extraordinary circumstances.”
http://www.wcuenglish.net/inkblot/mystery.html
March 21st, 2017 at 9:44 pm
I liked the first two, but again a series I didn’t feel compelled to keep up with.
March 21st, 2017 at 10:23 pm
I think I was the most disappointed with this series when it became clear that Boyer was more interested in writing thrillers than he was detective fiction.
Of course that’s just me. Thrillers outsell detective fiction by a factor of what, ten to one?
March 24th, 2017 at 7:21 am
As Richard L. Boyer, he wrote the entertaining THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA. You can figure out what (and who) that is about.
March 29th, 2017 at 5:42 am
Firesign Theater, Jeff?
I need to look around for more Kathi Maio on literature.