Beachfront mystery novels include Eric Lustbader's thriller Dark Homecoming and Virgin Heat, a mystery/love novel by Laurence Shames.ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mystery in the sand

Something, perhaps the tide, pulls mystery writers to set novels

Web posted June 30, 1997

By Bill Syken
Staff Writer

As anyone who has watched the television show Baywatch is aware, the beach is a place where hatred bubbles into murderous scheming.

This phenomenon is not isolated to television. Tropical settings, especially in Florida, have become as much a magnet for fictional detectives as they have for retired New Yorkers.

On television, the appeal of the beach is an excuse to show Pamela Anderson Lee in her ``lifeguard uniform.''

In books there has to be something more.

Lest you doubt that this literary phenomenon exists, look in your bookstore under ``Recent Releases by the Sea.'' You have Laurence Shames' Virgin Heat in Key West and James V. Hall's Red Sky at Night in Key Largo, each the latest installments in continuing series. Also just out is Eric Lustbader's Dark Homecoming, a shock-thriller set in Miami.

Then you have recent Floridabased works of top mystery writers, including Edna Buchanan, who writes about hard-nosed reporter Britt Montero; Carl Hiaasen, whose best-known work is Striptease (the book is much better than the movie); Paul Levine, who writes about Miami Dolphin linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter; and Ed McBain's Matthew Hope series. Kathy Hogan Trocheck even has a detective, Truman Kicklighter, who lives in a St. Petersburg retirement community. Early bird specials, anyone?

John Dufresne, a writer who taught at Augusta State University in the late 1980s and is now a professor at Florida International University in Miami, is at a loss to explain the phenomenon.

``I wish I knew why it is,'' he said. ``It seems like everyone that lives down here is writing one.''

Mr. Dufresne ran through some of the possible appeal of Florida to mystery writers - it's tropical, exotic, there's a lot of tourists, a mix of cultures. Then, as if to acknowledge the silliness of his speculation, he added dryly, ``When you mix all those things together, sometimes you end up with crime.''

Gathering of writers

The best explanation, Mr. Dufresne said, is that many writers live in Florida, and they write about what they see.

``It's a comfortable place to be,'' he said. ``If you're a writer and you don't have to check in anywhere, why not live in South Florida?''

Mystery is so in the air down there that Mr. Dufresne, known for his critically acclaimed dramatic novels Louisiana Power & Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little, found himself writing one, or at least helping out.

He took part in Naked Came the Manatee, a serial novel organized by The Miami Herald to capitalize on the surfeit of writers in the area. Without a real plan, one writer took a chapter, then passed it to the next, until they had completed a book. Elmore Leonard, mystery master and part-time Florida resident, wrote the last chapter, and had the job of tying it all together.

Dave Barry, of all people, wrote the first chapter. The humor writer introduced the 102year-old environmentalist named Coconut Grove, and the title character as well.

The writers who picked up the ball

included mystery veterans Ms. Buchanan, Mr. Hiaasen, Mr. Levine and Mr. Hall, as well as newcomers to mystery like Mr. Dufresne. The plot they weave includes four severed heads, all of which bear some resemblance to Fidel Castro, and a cameo appearance by the living Castro as well.

The book got mixed reviews for being a bit jumbled, but others recommended it as a way to introduce yourself to Florida writers.

Strange brews

A wacky, odd flavor seems to infect many Florida mysteries, even the grimmer ones. Mr. Hall's Red Sky at Night, for example, begins with a crime you wouldn't find in any other setting - the murder of 11 laboratory dolphins. Two of Mr. Hiaasen's novels feature a former Florida governor who has dropped out of society and lives in the Everglades.

Among the new books, Mr. Shames' Virgin Heat and Eric Lustbader's Dark Homecoming both have a wacky tropical spirit, even if they are wildly different in tone. Virgin Heat is as breezy as the novelty drink from which it takes its name, while Dark Homecoming spills as much blood and guts as any reader could expect from a mainstream novel.

Virgin Heat opens in a Key West bar, where a man is mixing novelty drinks, such as Sex on the Beach and Virgin Heat. The bartender is running through a dyspeptic internal monologue on how much he hates tourists, especially the one who is videotaping him making the drinks. That tape kick-starts the plot's engine, because the camera man is the brother of a mob kingpin who is about to get out of jail. He had been sent to jail by a former henchman who entered the witness-protection program. The henchman, of course, ended up in Key West, where he works as a bartender. By the way, the mob kingpin's virgin daughter is in love with the henchman.

Mr. Shames does a good job of keeping the twists and turns coming, and he has crafted a skillful page-turner. It's as much a love story as it is anything else. Yeah, there are guns and mobsters and people hunting each other down, but the real mystery is whether the daughter and the henchman will reunite, and to what extent. Slather on some all-day sunscreen and you can spend a pleasurable day finding out the answer.

Mr. Lustbader's Dark Homecoming, set in Miami, goes the other way. If it were named after a drink, it would be called Old Tabasco Sauce Whose Expiration Date Has Expired. Which is to say, it's got a grisly sort of kick. In the first 50 pages you get a wrestling match with a tiger shark, a beheading (the first of several, none of which will resemble Fidel Castro), a virtual reality sex club on South Beach, and the illegal harvesting of organs (and we don't mean Wurlitzer). The sexual abuse comes later.

That said, Mr. Lustbader has constructed a pretty decent potboiler. He does stay a couple of steps ahead of the reader and offers up a steady diet of surprises, all the way to the end. If you're one of those readers who has been desensitized to the point where you need a couple of jolts from the electrodes to grab your attention, this book's for you.