- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Orion; New edition edition (7 Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752815997
- ISBN-13: 978-0752815992
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,422,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Augie Silver is a good man, but when he disappears off the Florida Keys on a fishing trip, the vultures begin to circle. It seems that Augie was a painter of some worth and there is serious money to be made from his tragic demise, so when he turns up, some decide he would be better off dead.
About the Author
Laurence Shames was born in New Jersey and started out as a crime reporter. He then moved to the vibrant home of crime in a hot climate, Miami and became a reporter there. He now writes novels full time in between travelling around America in search of tennis and angling.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
'FUNERALS WORK BEST in the rain,' said Robert Natchez. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
'FUNERALS WORK BEST in the rain,' said Robert Natchez. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although this book attempts to set itself in the same colorful "wacky Florida crime" world of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen, it falls totally flat. The idea isn't bad, a beloved Key West painter goes missing in a storm and is presumed dead. His agent holds a memorial show of his work in an attempt to drive up the price of the posthumous painters work. This results in a canonizing review by a super-influential critic. A little later a Sotheby's auction is arranged and his friends, agent, and others all try and cash in on the painter's new cachet. Meanwhile, he comes back from the dead, throwing a spanner in everyone's plans! So someone tries to kill him to maintain the value of the art. It's a neat idea, but not particularly well executed. Airplane reading at best.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Good read, great characters
30 Nov 1998
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I stumbled upon this author after exhausting myself on James W. Hall and Carl Hiassen. It was arguably the best mystery book I've ever read in which no murder is ever committed! (Don't worry, I didn't give anything away.) Shames' lead character, Augie, is a refreshing change from the genre's typical hard-boiled, prone-to-violence protagonist. And Reuben, the gay servant, is a true hero. A pleasure to read! I'll be looking into more Shames titles.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Shames leaves thugs and enters a world of light
19 Sep 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
With Scavenger Reef, Laurence Shames leaves his entertaining crowd of displaced mafia thugs and paints a stunning portrait of a creative life in a real-world (if Kew-West-surreal) context. As a growing fan of the Florida mysteries by Leonard, Hiaasen, Hall, Shames, and others I like to identify what I consider the Key Book by each author, the one you most eagerly recommend. With Leonard it's La Brava. Tourist Season is the Key Book from Carl Hiaasen as is Under Cover of Daylight for James W. Hall. For Laurence Shames I definitely recommend Scavenger Reef. The usual literary portrayal of artists is as hacks, or as painters of alegorical canvases that serve the needs of the novel but which never sound like a painting you'd want to look at. The qualities of Augie Silver's canvases are abstract and radiant, they inform the descriptions of every setting in the book. Within this well-told story of friends and enemies is a startling sense of light and space.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Clever Tale!!!
26 July 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Scavenger Reef is the story of an artist whose death could increase his net worth into the millions!! An art dealer schemes to make big money when the artist is reported dead, money that will set her up for life, at a time when her options are quickly running out. As the grand scheme proceeds, several people who own paintings realize that they too can make enough money to dig themselves out of the holes they have dug. The only problem is, what if the artist is in fact alive? Who would be willing or desperate enough to keep the money making plans moving forward, even if that would involve lies, betrayal and ultimately murder.
I found the characters to be entertaining and borderline zany!! What they lack in moral spine , they make up for with an earnest enthusiasm for doing the wrong thing in pursuit of the almighty dollar. This is a tale that romps through-out Key West in the "classic- Florida" manner of taking the story way over the top!!!
I found the characters to be entertaining and borderline zany!! What they lack in moral spine , they make up for with an earnest enthusiasm for doing the wrong thing in pursuit of the almighty dollar. This is a tale that romps through-out Key West in the "classic- Florida" manner of taking the story way over the top!!!
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