When a waitress from an Appalachicola oyster bar heads south to Miami, she suddenly finds herself embroiled in a zany mystery set in Florida involving a man, the mob, a boat, guns, oysters, and a mysterious coffin. A first novel. Reprint.
Sleuth and crime photographer Alex Rutledge of Key West searches for a friend, a financial investor abducted from a bar. A tale of murder, drugs and beautiful women.
Years after his real parents are killed by a drunken driver and Thorn executes his own justice in the form of murder, his foster-mother is found brutally killed on her charter fishing boat, and Thorn, now in his late 30s, edges in among the suspects.
FDLE agent Bill Tasker is still smarting from a runin with the FBI that almost got him killed, when he reluctantly teams up with them again on a case involving a stolen Stinger missile. The op goes smoothly enough (though the feds take all the credit, what else is new?), but something about the whole setup just doesn't feel right to him. He pokes around a bit - and stirs up more trouble than a nest of rattlesnakes: with his boss, with the FBI, with the ATF, and worst of all, with a certain gentleman who loves to see things blow up...bigger and bigger things , as it turns out. He's never killed anybody yet, but if this FDLE agent keeps interfering - well, there's always a first time, isn't there? "Born mixes believable characters, a fast-moving story, crisp dialogue and a nice blend of humor," wrote the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. "This is just the beginnig of what should be a long career."
Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff." Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident" may be just the stiff Jack needs-if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way are [among others] an editor who wants Jack to "break her cherry," Stoma's ambitious pop-singer widow, and the soulless, profit-hungry newspaper owner Jack once publicly humiliated. As clues from Stoma's music give Jack Tagger the chance to trade obits for a story that could hit the front page, murder gives his career a new lease on life.
