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Florida Fiction

• Flamingo Rising
  Baker, Larry
  Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375400508 Date: 1997
  PW
  Set in Jacksonville, Florida, in the 1950s and 60s, this dazzling debut tells the story of the Lee family, living in the shadow of their beloved enterprise: the Flamingo, America's largest drive-in movie theater. Turner West wants to put a cementery on the land adjacent ot the Flamingo. Hubert Lee stands in his way. So, when Hubert's son, Abe, develops his first teenage crush, it could only be on Turner's daughter, Grace.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
• Big Trouble
  Author: Barry, Dave
  Publisher: Putnam List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399145672 Date: 1999
  PWKirkusLibrary Journal
  The humorous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes his fiction debut with a ferociously funny novel about love and mayhem in south Florida, and the the life-changing events that rumble through a odd-ball family after two hit men pull up to their door.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Humor | If You Like Carl Hiaasen
• Garden of Evil
  Author: Buchanan, Edna
  Publisher: Twilight List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 038976544 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Miami news reporter Britt Montero meets a fearsome nemesis: a female serial killer with the mind of a black widow.
  
• Cold Case Squad
  Author: Buchanan, Edna
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 22.95 ISBN: 0743250532 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Twelve years later after her husband's death in a freak explosion, a widow turns to Miami's Cold Case Squad to reopen the case and use new forensic techniques to investigate. Soon, they're faced with more questions than answers.
  Suggested Reading: Cold Cases
  Updated 4.8.04
• Gumbo Limbo
  Author: Corcoran, Tom
  Publisher: Minotaur List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312241941 Date: 1999
  PW
  The author of the critically acclaimed The Mango Opera returns with a new Alex Rutledge mystery, where the part-time Key West crime scene photographer comes to the rescue of an old Navy buddy who has come up missing.
  
• Black Sunshine
  Author: Date, S.V.
  Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399149465 Date: 2002
  Booklist
  Readers have flocked to Date's darkly comic stories: novels that are "biting and irreverent" (Orlando Sentinel). Date's latest is packed with razor-sharp wit and a raft of delightfully subversive characters and is satire of the highest order.
  Suggested Reading: Political Fiction | If You Like Carl Hiaasen
  Updated 9.9.02
• Hammerhead Ranch Motel
  Author: Dorsey, Tim
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 068817837 Date: 2000
  PW
  Fanatical Florida folklorist Serge A. Stormes, the star wacko in the cast of crazies from Florida Roadkill, is back in a new novel featuring a dancing TV weather dog, two sex- and drug-crazed co-eds on the lam, and a shotgun-totin' grandma, among others, in a final showdown during a killer hurricane.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Carl Hiaasen
  Updated 7/26/00
• Metro Girl
  Author: Evanovich, Janet
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060584009 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Evanovich's spectacular new novel about a woman in search of her missing brother comes complete with high stakes, hot nights, murder, and graft--not to mention car chases, car races, car explosions, and much more.
  Updated 11.2.04
• Off the Chart
  Author: Hall, James W.
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312271786 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Passion and intrigue heat up the Florida Keys as Thorn and Alexandra Rafferty face down a brutal killer bent on destroying everything they hold dear.
  Updated 5.14.03
• Lucky You
  Author: Hiaasen, Carl
  Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0679454446 Date: 1997
  PWKirkusLJ
  NYTBR Notable
  The newest- and funniest- novel yet by the bestselling author of Strip Tease and Stormy Weather. When JoLayne Lucks, the most recent winner of the Florida state lottery, has her ticket stolen by two would be "domestic terrorists", she enlists the help of Tom Krome- a journalist stretched thin by divorce, lite news, and a fool of a managing editor- in a chase that leads them to a deliriously righteous outcome - the inspired hallmark of Carl Hiaasen.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | If You Like Carl Hiaasen
• Skinny Dip
  Author: Hiaasen, Carl
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375411089 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  A shady marine scientist suspects that his wife knows that he has been doctoring water samples so that a ruthless tycoon can continue polluting the Everglades, so he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner. But she's saved by former cop Mick Stranahan--and that's when the real adventure begins.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Carl Hiaasen
  Updated 5.7.04
• Vengeance: Lew Fonesca
  Author: Kaminsky, Stuart M.
  Publisher: Forge List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312869274 Date: 1999
  PWKirkusBooklist
  A process server quits his job and flees town to escape the memories of his beloved late wife. When his car breaks down in Florida, Lew Fonesca settles there and is hired find a man's missing wife.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• The Blue Edge of Midnight
  Author: King, Jonathan
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0525946438 Date: 2002
  PW
  Featuring Max Freeman, an ex-cop from Philadelphia, The Blue Edge of Midnight marks the debut of a powerful new crime series.
  Suggested Reading: Private Investigators | Debuts
  Updated 2/21/02
• A Visible Darkness
  Author: King, Jonathan
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525947140 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Following up his acclaimed debut that introduced former Philadelphia cop Max Freeman, King delivers another gripping story. When attorney Billy Manchester calls Max about a string of suspicious deaths among elderly women, Max reluctantly pries where he's not wanted to find an unseen killer.
  Updated 2.20.03
  Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
• Shadow Men: Max Freeman
  Author: King, Jonathon
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525948074 Date: 2004
  BooklistPW
  It begins with an 80-year-old mystery. Three men--a father and his two sons--vanished while working as laborers on a dangerous project to build the first road through the Florida Everglades. Now, years later, a series of letters are unexpectedly discovered by a descendant of these men.
  Suggested Reading: Cold Cases | Priviate Investigators
  Updated 2.23.04
• Bone by Bone
  Author: Matthiessen, Peter
  Publisher: Random House List Price: $ 26.95 ISBN: 0375501029 Date: 1999
  BLKirkusLJPW
  Although it stands alone, Bone by Bone is the conclusion and capstone of the Watson trilogy as well as a true tour de force. Matthiessen brings his anti-hero to life with a complexity of character and profound humanity that establishes the novel as a modern classic.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
• Lost Man's River
  Author: Matthiessen, Peter
  Publisher: Random List Price: $ 26.95 ISBN: 0679403779 Date: 1997
  PW
  From one of the most celebrated writers of our time comes a dazzling new novel to follow his highly acclaimed and bestselling Killing Mr. Watson. A story of epic scope and ambition, Lost Man's River confronts the primal relationship between father and son and looks at ways it can shape a man's identity. ACT note: This is the second in a projected trilogy dealing with the death of Mr. Watson and the environment and people of Lost Man's River in southern Florida.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  
  
• Virgin Heat
  Author: Shames, Laurence
  Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $21.95 ISBN:2786862033 Date: 1997
  BooklistKirkus
  Shames's newest thriller is his wildest to date, rich in excitement, tension, laughs, and loopy characters. Fed up with the life set up for him by the Federal Witness Protection Program, Sal Martucci is tending bar in Key West when he is spotted in a home video by his ex-sweetheart, Angie Amaro - the daughter of the man who wantes Sal dead.
  Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up | If You Like Carl Hiaasen
• Presidential Deal
  Author: Standiford, Les
  Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060186550 Date: 1998
  PWKirkus
  Called the "unassailable new kingpin of the south Florida crime novel" (James Ellroy), Standiford shows how richly he deserves such praise in his most intricate, white-knuckle thriller yet, in which reluctant hero John Deal gets kidnapped - along with the First Lady of the United States.
  
• Ten Thousand Islands
  Author: White, Randy Wayne
  Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399146202 Date: 2000
  PW
  Florida marine biologist Doc Ford returns in an electrifying novel of new murder, and old, in this newest work by the author of The Mangrove Coast.
  Updated 5/4/00
• Everglades
  Author: White, Randy Wayne
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399150587 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Doc Ford encounters old friends and new enemies in a stunningly evocative thriller from "one of the nation's most compelling and skillful writers, " (The Tampa Tribune). Now, Doc Ford returns to his stilt house on Dinkin's Bay to find an old friend and one-time lover waiting for him.
  Updated 5.14.03
• Tampa Burn
  Author: White, Randy Wayne
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399151818 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Marion "Doc" Ford hoped he'd left his violent past behind him long ago, but he knows he has no choice but to return when his son is kidnapped by a thuggish politico set on revenge.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Carl Hiaasen
  Updated 6.1.04