Genuine Florida

Here is the cover from the visitors guide from 30 years ago. Below is a page from inside the publication.

Author James O. Born has written three so far of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement officer, Agent Tasker, and I hope he writes more. These are very well written especially involving police activity. Also Born clearly has a solid insight into the lives of the good guys and the bad guys. These books almost read as an Ann Rule true-crime book with a real handle on suspence and intrigue.

The first of the three is terrific as we follow Tasker around Dade County and a very big problem he has with the F.B.I.. The second is not quite up to the first and reads a little like a Tim Dorsey ‘Serge’ novel as a lover of explosives looks for fun. The third comes rather quietly at a fictional prison near Pahokee and then builds to a nail biting conclusion.

Born has left Tasker for a new series with a character named Alex Duatre. He’s currently working on his third novel of Duatre.

‘Dutch Uncle’ is part of the ‘Hard Case Crime’ series that is reprinting older pulp novels and brand new ones. This is a new one that was first published in 2005 and still available in stores. The locations is primarily in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Other locations involved are Sunrise, Gainesville and Orlando.

Author Peter Pavia has begun an extremely promising writing career with a top notch read of what most face in South Florida: Various varieties of crime. Pavia does a great job of laying out the various characters and their thought processes. The story then bounces from one to the other each with their own view of various situations in the book. This is very well done. The plot seems to be heading to a cliff,,,and maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. That makes another interesting turn in the writing: You draw your own conclusion. The way it is all written, you care enough to find out. Well done!

This is a very good book. Not only is it very well researched and footnoted, it’s also very balanced. I’ve noticed a trend of recent non-fiction books of Florida to have a very sharp political slant. Despite writing about the Civil War and the very conroversial land and oyster wheeler-dealer William Lee Popham the author, Willaim Warren Rogers, does and amazing job of being very fair.

Rogers writing of Popham could have leaned to pure camp. What a character! Getting the book to read just about Popham is well worth the price!

After the many, many Florida mysteries I’ve read T.J. MacGregor was one I hadn’t taken in yet. My first of her series is ‘Kill Flash’. ‘Kill Flash’ is second in the P.I. duo series and is very good. Set in the Miami area, this series involves a husband and wife P.I. team. They find themselves trying to solve the deaths of the crew of a movie shooting in the area. The unknown killer picks off one and then another until the conclusion. That’s where the disappointment comes in as the killer holds back to get caught in a rather easy writing device that concludes the story. Still the book is very well written and the interplay among the characters brings you closer to them.