Jeff Lindsay gained fame due to the huge success of his Dexter series featuring blood pathologist/serial killer Dexter Morgan, which spawned multiple installments and a terrific TV series on Showtime. Most recently, the literary series came to an end with the ironic title DEXTER IS DEAD.

For Lindsay, before there was ever a Dexter Morgan, there was Billy Knight. His first novel, TROPICAL DEPRESSION, was set in the Florida Keys and featured Knight, a burnt-out former cop. Lindsay now takes advantage of closing the door on one series by reopening the door on a new one.

RED TIDE, like all of Lindsay's work, is set in his home state of Florida. In the Billy Knight novels, the home base is the distinctly original Key West area. Key West is such a wild place that it behaves almost like another character here. To quote from Billy: “There is nothing quite like being in love in Key West. Just walking down Duval Street can make you feel more alive than you have ever felt before, like God loves you more than other people and everything you do will always turn out right.”

"The Billy Knight novels are filled with dark humor, larger-than-life personalities, and a nice mix of good, evil and those who exist somewhere in between."

Unfortunately for Billy, this sentiment does not hold true. His relationship with his girlfriend, Nancy, is coming to an unsurprising end. Perhaps the fact that he is a shiftless sort who spends his days at a Key West dive bar while she pursues her nursing career provides evidence that this couple was not meant to be. Getting into a bar fight at said bar with Nancy present and ending up in jail probably marked their official end.

While drowning his sorrows on a boat ride with his Australian drinking buddy, Nicky, they turn up something horrific. Parts of a floating dead body are found while they are taking target practice at objects in the water. Immediately, Billy's cop persona takes over and they call this gruesome find into the local authorities. Further investigation points to the fact that the body was of a refugee Haitian immigrant. The question remains what actually happened and if this was an innocent drowning or something far more sinister.

Billy and Nicky, along with a handful of colorful people from both Key West and Miami, assist in a private investigation that points towards a nefarious individual with a deadly background in dark magic and voodoo. Billy and Nicky plan to infiltrate one of the black freighters allegedly filled with refugees. They are also motivated to find the young Russian woman named Anna, to whom Billy has taken quite a liking. She was kidnapped by this evil human trafficker, and they fear the worst for her survival.

RED TIDE pulls no punches and readily goes to the dark side of eccentric Florida. It’s refreshing to see Lindsay return to a series and a character completely different from the Dexter books. The Billy Knight novels are filled with dark humor, larger-than-life personalities, and a nice mix of good, evil and those who exist somewhere in between.