Laurence Shames Books In Order

Key West Mysteries Books In Publication Order

  1. Florida Straits (1992)
  2. Scavenger Reef (1994)
  3. Sunburn (1995)
  4. Tropical Depression (1996)
  5. Virgin Heat (1997)
  6. Mangrove Squeeze (1998)
  7. Welcome to Paradise (1999)
  8. The Naked Detective (2000)
  9. Shot on Location (2013)
  10. Chickens (2014)
  11. Tropical Swap (2014)
  12. Key West Luck (2015)
  13. One Strange Date (2017)
  14. One Big Joke (2017)
  15. Nacho Unleashed (2019)
  16. Key West Normal (2021)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Bad Twin (As: Gary Troup) (2006)
  2. The Angels’ Share (2012)
  3. Money Talks (2014)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Big Time (1986)
  2. The Hunger for More (1989)
  3. Not Fade Away (2003)
  4. Living Large (2006)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Natural Suspect (2001)

Key West Mysteries Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

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Laurence Shames Books Overview

Florida Straits

Joey Goldman’s flying south for the winter. The second string New York wiseguy just packed up his faithful girlfriend Sandra and took off for Key West land of sun, surf and sleaze where a small time hustler in search of a racket can score the big one. If he can find it. Enter Joey’s half brother Gino. On the lam from the mob after one of the most royally screwed up jewel heists in Florida history, Gino’s a man in need of a fall guy. Which is where Joey comes in…
Suddenly, everyone’s after Joey including the ruthless Miami don who wants his three million worth of uncut emeralds and who just dispatched his goons to deliver Joey a one way ticket out. Now Joey’s where he always wanted to be in the big time. All he has to do is find out where the stones are stashed. And for an unikely hero out to make a killing, this could be Paradise…
if he lives long enough.

Scavenger Reef

Key West artist Augie Silver’s paintings are worth a fortune, if he is dead, but he may be still alive and ready to paint again; and there are those who want to make sure that he is dead. NYT. PW.

Sunburn

When Joey Goldman’s illegitimate father, a nefarious godfather from New York, heads to Key West, Joey has the bright idea of letting a Kew West reporter help write his memoirs, a book that no onethe Mafia, the FBI, or the real heir to Delgatto’s family businesswants to see published.

Tropical Depression

Key West may very well get its first legal gambling parlor if Murray Zemelman, a.k.a. The Bra King, and his new partner Tommy Tarpon, a local Native American, can pull off their kooky, Prozac induced plan. When a local mafioso and Key West’s most crooked politician decide to get a piece of their action, Murray and Tommy fight for their money and their lives in a battle of wits, writs and anti depressants.

Virgin Heat

Mafia princess Angelina Amaro has only ever loved one man and that lone affair was never consummated. Why not? Because her would be lover, Sal Martucci, fled into the Witness Protection Program after ratting out Angelina’s father. When Sal is discovered working as a bartender in Key West, the wildly dysfunctional Amaro clan heads south one member with love on her mind, the others with murder in their hearts.

Nearly impossible to put down, wrote The Cleveland Plain Dealer. The book s laugh out loud wit recall s the best of Carl Hiaasen and its quirky characters and tough mindedness are like Elmore Leonard s.

Mangrove Squeeze

Key West seduces people then asks them to leave in the morning. Take Aaron Katz. He shucked his nine to five to restore Mangrove Arms, a rotting wreck of a guest house. Suki Sperakis sees opportunity in Florida too. In the meantime she’s peddling ad space for a third rate freebie paper. Then she stumbles upon a nefarious plot revolving around a handsome Russian and his string of T shirt shops. Can’t a guy manufacture plutonium in peace?

Now, with the Russian mafia on her trail, freewheeling Suki is running for her life and right into the safety of Aaron’s Mangrove Arms. As dead bodies sully the Key West scenery, a secret society of killers puts the squeeze on Suki and Aaron and conspires to turn an island paradise into a tropical death trap…
.

Welcome to Paradise

Before mild mannered furniture salesman Al Tuschman left New Jersey for a week in Key West, he hadn’t an enemy in the world. But a series of puzzling assaults on his privacy, his sanity, and his life has turned his stay at the tasteful Paradise Hotel into Tropical Hell. Maybe it’s the humidity. Maybe the Sambuca. Or maybe it’s the nickname emblazoned on his license plate: Big Al. For Big Al Marracotta, Mafia capo, a Florida getaway means outrunning a career in crime and rancid calamari. For Katy Sansone it’s a bid for sunshine and self respect until a case of mistaken identity pits the confused woman against a bafflement of Als and more danger than any one of them had reason to pack for. Now, if Tuschman doesn’t watch his back, somebody’s going to be reporting the death of another salesman…
.

The Naked Detective

‘I never meant to be a private eye.’Thus are we introduced to Pete Amsterdam, the world’s most reluctant sleuth and the improbable but totally engaging protagonist of this wry and irresistible novel. Naked in his hot tub, Pete is idly reviewing his morning tennis game when trouble arrives in the form of the inevitable blonde. This being Key West, the blonde is not quite what she seems, and it’s useless to explain to her that he’s not a real detective that, in fact, he got his P.I. license strictly as a tax dodge, a way to pretend his new wine cellar is an ‘office.’ She’s got troubles of her own big troubles that are utterly foreign to the cozy little paradise Pete has crafted for himself. Why, then, does the unwilling gumshoe allow himself to be squeezed ever tighter against Key West’s humid underbelly involved with the likes of local bully Lefty Ortega, his nympho daughter, and the sleazeball who controls the island’s gambling boats? And why does he feel that his life is being taken over by the demands and traditions of the detective story?Will Pete blunder his way through to solving the crime? Will he penetrate the leotard of the lissome yoga teacher who is his only ally? The answers will be found in these fast moving and hilarious pages, where the hard boiled flirts with the postmodern. Think of this novel as Raymond Chandler meets Woody Allen meets the Coen brothers, and as a romp that somehow breaks through to serious consideration of the themes of community and responsibility, and the notion that maybe all of us could be heroes even if mostly in spite of ourselves.

Bad Twin (As: Gary Troup)

Sometimes evil has a familiar face…
Paul Artisan, P.I. is a new version of an old breed a righter of wrongs, someone driven to get to the bottom of things. Too bad his usual cases are of the boring malpractice and fraud variety. Until now. His new gig turns on the disappearance of one of a pair of twins, adult scions of a rich but tragedy prone family. The missing twin a charismatic poster boy for irresponsibility has spent his life daring people to hate him, punishing himself endlessly for his screw ups and misdeeds. The other twin Artisan’s client is dutiful and resentful in equal measure, bewildered that his ‘other half’ could have turned out so badly, and wracked by guilt at his inability to reform him. He has a more practical reason, as well, for wanting his brother found: their crazy father, in failing health and with guilty secrets of his own, will not divide the family fortune until both siblings are accounted for. But it isn’t just a fortune that’s at stake here. Truth itself is up for grabs, as the detective’s discoveries seem to challenge everything we think we know about identity, and human nature, and family. As Artisan journeys across the globe to track down the bad twin, he seems to have moved into a mirror world where friends and enemies have a way of looking very much alike. The P.I. may have his long awaited chance to put his courage and ideals to the test, but if he doesn’t get to the bottom of this case soon, it could very well cost him his life. Troup’s long awaited Bad Twin is a suspenseful novel that touches on many powerful themes, including the consequence of vengeance, the power of redemption, and where to turn when all seems lost. Bad Twin is a work of fiction and all names, characters and incidents are used fictitiously; the author himself is a fictional character.

The Big Time

1949 was a pivotal moment of economic dominance; the MBA was still exotic, arcane, and swaggeringly potent. The men of Harvard Business School 49 would be the class the dollars fell on. By 1974, nearly one 49er in five was a millionaire. Forty five percent were chairmen, presidents, or chief operating officers. The men of HBS 49, however, hadnt just achieved success; theyd defined success. Their story is much more than a catalogue of vivid business tales; it is a map of American ambitions and assumptions, of national triumphs and epic scale misjudgments that have only recently been finding their comeuppance.

Not Fade Away

Some people are born to lead and destined to teach by the example of living life to the fullest, and facing death with uncommon honesty and courage. Peter Barton was that kind of person. Driven by the ideals that sparked a generation, he became an overachieving Everyman, a risk taker who showed others what was possible. Then, in the prime of his life hugely successful, happily married, and the father of three children Peter faced the greatest of all challenges. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey that was not only frightening and appalling but also full of wonder and discovery. With unflinching candor and even surprising humor, Not Fade Away finds meaning and solace in Peter’s confrontation with mortality. Celebrating life as it dares to stare down death, Peter’s story addresses universal hopes and fears, and redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain, of breaking through to personal faith, and of achieving peace after bold and sincere questioning.

Living Large

You can hardly pick up a magazine or turn on the TV today without encountering a torrent of talk on weight. But all too rarely do we hear from overweight people themselves especially men about how life feels inside the body of a fat person. Mike Berman shares that story in this hopeful and uplifting memoir.A self proclaimed fat man who is also a happy man successful in his career, marriage, and friendships Berman has earned his insight and peace of mind through decades of personal struggle. In Living Large, this well known political activist and Washington lobbyist never shies away from the pain and daunting challenges of being seriously overweight. But Berman has an important message that he wants to be heard: Fatness is not a moral failing, but a disease; and once it is accepted as such, it can be successfully managed. Laurence Shames, author of Not Fade Away, has tackled this important story and captured Mike Berman’s voice as movingly as he did the late Peter Barton s in that beloved, critically acclaimed memoir.

Natural Suspect

What Carl Hiaasen and a host of South Florida’s finest authors did for Sunshine State crime capers in the New York Times bestseller Naked Came the Manatee, William Bernhardt now does for legal thrillers with the help of a ‘Dream Team’ of today s hottest suspense writers. Like a literary game of telephone, Natural Suspect begins with a chapter from Bernhardt. Then each writer contributes a chapter and pas*ses it along to the next. The result is a completely inventive, brilliantly plotted novel of suspense with more twists than a schizophrenic’s train of thought. Can you guess who wrote which chapter?Natural SuspectArthur Hightower made a name for himself and a vast fortune in the oil business. But when the volatile tycoon decides to disinherit his spoiled children and cheating wife, he makes the biggest mistake of his life and the last. After declaring his intentions, Hightower turns up on Thanksgiving Day…
clubbed to death and stuffed in a meat locker, clutching a frozen asset his wife s precious pearl necklace. Now Julia Hightower stands charged with the cold as ice crime of murdering for millions. While the sensational trial has New York in a frenzy, a curious cast of characters face off in and out of the courtroom. Devin McGee, a small time lawyer about to hit the big time defending Julia Hightower if her intimate encounter with the prosecutor doesn t catch up with her…
Trent Ballard, the quirky assistant D.A., who owns a huge pet rabbit and thinks his tryst with Devin will help him get a conviction…
Patrick Roswell, a wannabe reporter sitting on a scoop that could turn the trial upside down, unless a scalpel wielding clown decides to kill the story and Patrick…
Sissy Hightower, Julia’s sex crazed, air headed daughter in law, who has a suitcase full of secrets…
Robert S. Rutledge, a powerful Wall Street warrior with a lot riding on the Hightower verdict and a lot to learn about messing with the wrong people…
and Cordelia, the mystery woman that everyone seems to know. All are in for the trial of their lives but who among them is the true Natural Suspect?All author royalties will be donated to The Nature Conservancy. From the Hardcover edition.

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