Of all the crime writers currently mining Florida for fictional gold, James W. Hall is arguably the best at catching that state"s unique topographic heartbeat. In his books about beach bum Thorne (including Buzz Cut, Mean High Tide, and Hard Aground), you can smell the ocean mixed in with the blood. Now Hall is starting a new series, about Miami police photographer Alexandra Rafferty, and readers will probably overlook the nagging feeling of some ingredients from other Florida writers tossed into the mix (Elmore Leonard"s gallery of colorful sociopaths, Carl Hiaasen"s over-the-top quirkiness) because of dead-on descriptions like this: "Jennifer McDougal"s small white cottage at 2709 Leafy Way was wedged between two Coconut Grove mansions. To the west was a massive high-tech structure with severe angles, skylights, buttresses, heavy concrete archways, and dozens of columns holding up a grape trellis. A neon flamingo was lit up beside the massive front doors and neon numerals flickered beneath it." Alexandra is a fascinating character, wounded by a childhood rape. Very protective of her ex-policeman father who saved her then and has now slipped into senility, she deliberately keeps her talents and emotions in check. Her husband (one of those lovable Leonard lunatics) is an armored-car driver secretly planning the crime of the century, and the rest of the plot involves the search for a killer of young women who leaves his victims in unusual postures. --Dick Adler