John Dufresne is an
American author of French Canadian descent. In 1998, he collaborated with Carl
Hiaasen, Dave
Barry, Elmore
Leonard and
nine other South Florida writers on Naked Came the Manatee, a
detective novel. His most recent novel
is No Regrets, Coyote. He kindly agreed to reveal his 10
favourite Florida Noir novels.
I want to
share my favourite Florida crime novels, but where to begin? The list of powerful writers is formidable
and extensive. I’ve left off many of the
best: Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey, Les Standiford, James Grippando, James O.
Born, Edna Buchanan, Paul Levine, Barbara Parker, Laurence Shames, Randy Wayne
White, Lawrence Sanders, and Ace Atkins, to name a few, all of whom you should
read if you love your noir with a tropical touch. I’ve settled on these ten, which are both
representative and diverse. Hope you
enjoy them. Hope they keep you up at
night.
All or
Nothing by Preston
Allen
This is one
of those books that will haunt your dreams and your days. Allen has done for gambling what William S.
Burroughs did for narcotic addiction. He’s
gotten in to the heart of the darkness and shown us what it feels like to be
trapped, to be haunted, and to live without choice. Allen is relentless and unsparing in his
depiction of the life of a gambling addict, from the magical thinking to the
visceral thrill of risking it all. A
gambler lives on hope, and a gambler will kill to keep that hope alive. Wouldn’t you?
Preston L. Allen is so good a writer it’s scary.
Naked Came
the Manatee by Dave Barry,
Carl Hiaasen, et al.
A novel
first serialised in the Miami Herald,
that I was fortunate to be a part of. My
first foray into crime. A comic sendup
of the whole Florida Crime genre, by fifteen South Florida crime writers, with
plenty of murder, Fidel Castro and his imposters, movie stars, right-wing Cuban
freedom fighters, environmentalists, TV anchors. A rollercoaster thrill ride.
Ninety-Two
in the Shade by Thomas McGuane
Thomas
Skelton escapes a reckless life of drugs and peril and returns home to Key West
to his extravagantly eccentric family and a life as a fishing guide. Part farce and part tragedy, Ninety-two in the Shade details life in
the steamy netherworld of Conch Republic in all its flamboyant and louche glory. The story is both grim and hilarious and illustrates
what one memorable character says about murder: “You should never shoot someone
if it isn’t funny.”
The Big Goodbye by Michael Lister
Michael Lister has the
world of Florida Panhandle noir all to himself.
It’s 1941 and Panama City, Florida, PI Jimmy “Soldier” Riley, a
one-armed ex-cop, has to stop the murders and solve a case involving
an ex-sweetheart with something to hide. This is a
tough, violent, and hard-boiled novel, which will remind you of Raymond
Chandler and Graham Greene. This novel
of obsession and suspense will remind you why you started
reading crime novels in the first place.
Miami Purity by Vicki Hendricks
Sherri Parlay, exotic
dancer, gets her shot at redemption when she
takes a job at a dry cleaning
establishment called Miami-Purity.
But
she’s been down so
long; she’ll never get up.
This intense and relentless novel will remind you of the hard-boiled
stories of James M. Cain; only it’s Cain on speed. Sherri’s one tough lady. She’s maybe a little bit perverted; she’s a
lot obsessed, and she thinks she can get away with murder.
Miami Blues by Charles Willeford
Of South Florida crime
writers it might be said, “We all came out from under Willeford’s trench
coat.” Charles Willeford is the
godfather of Miami Noir, and Miami Blues is
his finest achievement. Detective
Sergeant Hoke Mosely is up against a terrifying sociopath. He’s already had his jaw wired shut and lost
his teeth. The writing is terse and
compelling, and the plot propulsive. It’s
tough, it’s funny, and it’s frightening.
Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen
If you like
your crime with a dollop of quirky humour, then Carl Hiaasen is the writer for
you, and Nature Girl is
representative of his best work. Zany
characters, some of them crazier than outhouse rats, outrageous plot twists, and
all the seediness and grotesque tropical allure that Florida in general, and in
this case, Dismal Key in particular, are known for. Reformed drug runner: check. Seminole alligator wrestler: check. Volunteer hostage: check. Bipolar queen of lost causes: check. Hop on the airboat and strap yourself in. This is going to be one crazy ride.
Under Cover
of Daylight by James W.
Hall
This was the
first Florida crime novel I ever read, back before I moved here from Georgia,
and it opened a whole new world of fiction to me. I’m still grateful. I knew about Hall as a celebrated poet with
four collections of poetry published by Norton.
The novel introduces Hall’s serial hero Thorn, a man living with a dark
secret. This is a story of revenge and
relentless pursuit set in the Florida Keys, and its complicated plot and
luminous prose set Under Cover well above
most other crime novels.
The Dreadful
Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald
The novels
of John D. McDonald are among the finest in American literature, suspense, or
mainstream, and The Dreadful Lemon Sky ranks
as one of his best. McDonald’s
introspective hero, Travis McGee, docked his houseboat Busted Flush at Slip F-18, Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale, just up the road
from my house. Jim Thompson said the
only real plot is that nothing is, as it seems.
He may have been talking about The
Dreadful Lemon Sky.
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
Readers naturally
associate Lehane with Boston, but he also lived here in Florida in St. Pete and
Miami, and in Live by Night he
documents the rise of a Boston Irish criminal to underworld power in Tampa’s
Ybor City. No one does epic better than
Dennis Lehane. No one writes about the
violent world of crime with such power, intensity, and propulsion. You can hardly catch your breath.
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No Regrets, Coyote
On
Christmas Eve in Eden, Florida, Wylie “Coyote” Melville, therapist and forensic
consultant, is summoned to a horrific crime scene. Five members of the Halliday family have been
brutally killed. Wylie’s rare talent is
an ability to read a crime scene, consider the evidence seen and unseen, and
determine what’s likely to have happened.
The police are soon convinced that the deaths were a murder-suicide
carried out by a broken and desperate Chafin Halliday, but Wylie’s not so sure. As Wylie begins his own
investigation with the help of his friend Bay Lettique—a poker-playing
sleight-of-hand artist with links to the Everglades County underworld—he
discovers a web of corruption involving the police union, Ponzi-scheming
lawyers, county politicians, and the Russian mob. What follows is a
heart-stopping, edgy novel that introduces a completely original crime solver.
More information about John Dufresne can be found on his website and he can also be found on Facebook.
