Sunburn

One of Shames' Key West novels featuring Bert the Shirt d'Ambrosia, known for his beautiful shirts and constipated chihuahua. Shames is adept at setting a scene and describing people and places. A "dull, coarse, and sluggish" mobster pays an unexpected visit to his non-mobster brother and stands "glutting the doorframe like a feed-lot steer." The sky over lower Manhattan is "the swirly, smeary white of paint that needed mixing." Shames creates characters that come alive and have staying power.

Joey Goldman and the rest of the cast (well, the ones that lived anyway) from Florida Straits are back! I love them all so I was delighted to dive into this new adventure where Joey's father - the Godfather - decides to write his memoirs... other members of The Organization aren't real thrilled. Shames paints the most incredible detailed pictures. I'm going to try and hold off his next one Tropical Depression until it comes out in paperback in a couple of months... if I can.

This was all right but not that great. The author obviously came up with what he thought were literary gems and kept shoving them in whenever possible. That bit with the 99-cent pen and the hairs the length of eyelashes over and over and over. Enough.

I did like some of the people though. And the mob thing wasn’t too overdone, although the over-simplified grandpa image of Vincente was a bit much. I mean, a guy doesn’t get to be Godfather by being a nice guy. And I can’t understand why in the end the up and coming Capo who was going to kill Vincente’s son mysteriously went away. Doesn’t make sense.