Sunset Bluff

 

I just finished reading Sunset Bluff, the latest "Key West Capers" novel by Laurence Shames. Shames started his writing career as a journalist and also began writing non-fiction books, both under his own name and as a ghostwriter. In 1991, Boss of Bosses, which he wrote with two FBI agents, became a national bestseller and provided the means to buy a house in Key West, where he decided to do what he always wanted to do: write novels. He began with Florida Straits, which turned out to be a big hit, and led to 7 more of these comic novels about Key West. Then he and his wife moved to Ojai, California, where he tried his hand at scriptwriting, and since he was not living in Key West anymore and in touch with day-to-day life there, stopped writing the series for 12 years.

Then, wanting his books to remain in print, he republished them and made them available on Amazon in both print and digital formats. And to his surprise, he found people were still buying them. Since he really enjoyed writing these stories, he decided to continue the series, self-publishing them due to the new realities of the industry. He has now written 10 more "Key West Capers," the latest being Sunset Bluff, which finds two writers in a local Key West bar getting to talking and deciding to switch identities. One ghostwrites a mystery/adventure series of novels, and the other writes biographies of mob bosses. They are both bored with their work and think taking over each other's current project would be fun. Of course, if you are doing this when it involves a Mafia don, it could and does lead to trouble. And as usual, Bert the Shirt, an old, retired mafia guy who lives in Key West with his chihuahua, Nacho, has to step in to keep things from getting out of hand. These are really fun books to read, and I definitely recommend the series. And by the way, the photograph on the right is of my sister Susan, mother Mary, and father Nelson on a trip to Key West back in 1979, the last time I visited the place. I wonder if it has changed at all since then?