Tropical Freeze (Thorn Series #2) »

JAMES W. HALL is an Edgar and Shamus Award–winning author whose books have been translated into a dozen languages. He has written four books of poetry, a collection of short fiction, and a collection of essays. This is his fifteenth novel. He and his wife, Evelyn, divide their time between South Florida and North Carolina.

The rugged Florida troubleshooter Thorn is back in another high-tension story of crime, love, and revenge, described by the Chicago Tribune as "wry, vivid, wonderful. . . . A first-rate thriller!"

Publishers Weekly

Fisherman Thorn, first seen in the well-received Under Cover of Daylight , is getting his life together slowly, rebuilding his house in the Florida Keys and supporting himself by making fishing lures. When his boyhood friend, ex-FBI agent Gaeton Richards, disappears, his sister Darcy enlists Thorn in a campaign to nail Gaeton's boss, Benny Cousins, the not-quite-respectable head of a multinational rent-a-cop business who is determined to become a force in local ``conch'' affairs. But little is what it seems: Thorn and Darcy find themselves up against not only Benny but also violent, Florida cracker Ozzie, who lusts for Darcy and works for Papa John, local ``character'' and scam-master--and Benny's nasty racket may be protected by the Feds. Fast, cinematic scene-shifting, garish gallows humor (Tropical Freeze is the name on Papa John's ice cream truck--with a corpse in its freezer) and a violent, roller-coaster plot lead to a bleak, cynical ending. The main flavor is rue: the people in the Keys who came ``to the outer fringes of America to nourish their rugged individualism'' are losing it to modern civilization. 35,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; Mysterious Book Club selection. (Oct.)