A fishing guide (like her creator) and part-time investigator (what you'd expect from the author of the Doc Ford series), strong and striding Floridian Hannah Smith has an unusual case. To rescue Florida's withering orange trees, she's tasked with finding samples of the original root stock planted by the Spanish conquistadors. Alas, other folks would kill for the juicy gold those roots promise. Note that Piper Perabo is developing a Hannah Smith series for television.

Early in bestseller White's suspenseful fourth Hannah Smith novel (after 2014's Haunted), the Florida fishing guide has to deal with the death of 80-year-old Harney Chatham, a former Florida lieutenant governor, in the arms (and bed) of her mother, Loretta. Smith reluctantly agrees to help the governor's chauffeur, Reggie, move Chatham's body to a more respectable place to die, the Chatham estate. Her involvement puts Smith at odds with Chatham's widow, Lonnie, and introduces her to Chatham's handsome grove manager, Kermit Bigalow, whose comments on the blight ravaging Florida's oranges propel Smith on a high-stakes hunt for an ancient orange tree, whose fruit might be disease resistant, in a remote, tangled mangrove area called Choking Creek. There she encounters the giant pythons that are decimating Florida's native animals, as well as lethal human snakes trying to beat her to the prize tree. White smoothly infuses an intriguing plot with timely environmental issues. Author tour. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct.)