UNDER COVER OF DAYLIGHT by James W. Hall

 Finished Th 7/29/21

This is one of my paperbacks that I never read, but purchased at the library book sale on Fr 6/7/19.

This was an enjoyable 'beach' or 'airport' read, but no new ground broken.

James W. Hall is a writer who centers his books in Florida and this one mostly occurred in the Florida Keys- especially Key West. I didn't realize that this book was the first in a series until I finished reading it. At Wikipedia it shows that this book was released in 1987 and now there are 15 novels in this series. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"The first Thorn mystery from Edgar Award–winning author James W. Hall: a story of revenge in the Florida Keys that “starts good and stays good, right to the end” (Chicago Tribune).

Thorn’s parents died the day he was born, run off the road by a drunk driver on their way back from the hospital. The baby lived, the offender beat the rap, and both went on with their lives—until nineteen years later, when Thorn took revenge, hunting down his parents’ killer and taking his life in a vain attempt to bring back those who had been lost.

 Two decades later, Thorn remains scarred by his crime. He lives in Key West, selling fishing flies and keeping an eye on Kate Truman, the woman who adopted him. But now he has lost her, too, to a pair of brutal murderers whom the police have no hope of tracking down. Thorn knows the Keys, and he will find them—but before he can take revenge, he must confront the horror of the first time he killed.

 The first in the series featuring Thorn, who “may remind you of John D. MacDonald’s immortal Travis McGee . . . or perhaps Lee Child’s Jack Reacher” (TheWashington Post Book World), this intense thriller is filled with both danger and emotional depth. Elmore Leonard has called James W. Hall’s debut novel “a beauty.”

More or less it is a 'revenge book' about a man who gets even for the senseless deaths of his parents by a drunk driver. The 'avenging' happens in the first scenes of the novel.