| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
When Joey Goldman's illegitimate father, a nefarious godfather from New York, heads to Key West, Joey has the bright idea of letting a Kew West reporter help write his memoirs, a book that no onethe Mafia, the FBI, or the real heir to Delgatto's family businesswants to see published.
About the Author
Laurence Shames is the author of Eight Key West novels: Mangrove Squeeze, Virgin Heat, Tropical Depression, Sunburn, Scavenger Reef, Florida Straits, Welcome To Paradise, and The Naked Detective. He is also the uncredited co-writer of the New York Times Bestseller Boss of Bosses. Shames lives with his wife Marilyn in Key West, Florida.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the best of Mr Shames books so far - and they have all been very good. It is laugh out loud funny, the characters are easy to care about and it is beautifully written .
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
sort of a man's equivalent to a Stephanie Plum book...
20 July 2003
Format:Paperback
Janet Evanovich writes an extraordinary successful series of funny crime stories starring Stephanie Plum, the bounty hunter who happens to be a babe. While they should have universal appeal it seems that the publishers target them to women (..guys don't like buying pink covered books). However I can now say I found the male equivalent to Evanovich's novels: Laurence Shames novels. They are also funny, well-written stories with quirky yet likeable characters.
So what does Shames give us with 'Sunburn'? Beyond the formulaic breezy comedic crime novel with a Key West setting he delivers .. shock!.. some rather dramatic and moving stuff (, without taking it all too seriously). We have an aging crime figure who wants to dictate his life story to a sympathetic journalist. Unfortunately both the FBI and others within the Mafia have an unhealthy interest in what is being written, and an especially stupid son makes matters much, much worse. Without divulging spoilers, I simply want to say the author has structured and paced the novel beautifully. The last fifty pages are especially good, exciting.
Bottom line: much better than his introductory 'Florida Straits', 'Sunburn' has made me a fan of Laurence Shames.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Worth the reprint
29 Jan 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The copy I read is a reprint of the original, unavailable for a number of years. My experience with Lawrence Shames has been the much more comic novels; although, Bert the Shirt - the retired mafioso who died is an important part of the action here. His trip to New Yaak after more than ten years of tropical warmth will strike maky Floridians as the equivalen of a descent into hell. One whom I know has no shoes with toes so people cannot make her visit during winter. Perhaps Bert is as close as Shames comes to the humor of his later books. This is a more serious but not heavy handed analysis of the biographer's art.
Arty, a newspaperman and friend of the "Godfather's" illegitimate son is tempted into assisting with an autobiography. In it the old man will tell all. But the rub is that he tells the philosophy of his life: discrimination, self protection, racisim, authority, omerta, the need for something of one's own. Arty is getting nowhere, but becomes everyone's target. Meanwhile he becomes closer to the family and "the family."Everyone else, Vincente's other son, the mafia, the FBI all think the book is a naming of names and the chaos that results reaches the point of murder. Still there is a resolution of sorts: not a happy ending but at least ajust ending. It is a very different book from Welcome to Paradise , for example, but still an enjoyable discovery. Shames would probably do better if he left out his attempts to spell out New York accents. But aside from that, a good Key West read.
Arty, a newspaperman and friend of the "Godfather's" illegitimate son is tempted into assisting with an autobiography. In it the old man will tell all. But the rub is that he tells the philosophy of his life: discrimination, self protection, racisim, authority, omerta, the need for something of one's own. Arty is getting nowhere, but becomes everyone's target. Meanwhile he becomes closer to the family and "the family."Everyone else, Vincente's other son, the mafia, the FBI all think the book is a naming of names and the chaos that results reaches the point of murder. Still there is a resolution of sorts: not a happy ending but at least ajust ending. It is a very different book from Welcome to Paradise , for example, but still an enjoyable discovery. Shames would probably do better if he left out his attempts to spell out New York accents. But aside from that, a good Key West read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Gilligan's Island with an Edge
5 Sep 2001
Format:Paperback
RE: RECORDED BOOKS AUDIO VERSION. Among the quirky Key West characters are a reluctant & reflective Mafia Don, his pal "retired" heavy Bert the Shirt, a ditzy gun-moll with a heart of gold, a neurotic Jewish newspaper editor and the Shirt's aging chihuahua, Don Giovanni. They're all artfully blended in a stew of humor and suspense where its hard to tell the white hats from the black. Well worth a read.
One question: why am I the first friggin' guy to, whaddayacallit, review, this book, Knowwhaddamean?
One question: why am I the first friggin' guy to, whaddayacallit, review, this book, Knowwhaddamean?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
