Book Description
A new direction, a new hero for the author who has overtaken Carl Hiassen, in 'plot, invention and sheer vigour' Literary Review.
Product Description
For the first time Laurence Shames, the comic master of Key West Crime, has written a first person novel. His new voice, his new hero, is Pete Amsterdam. Peter never intended to become a PI. He blames his accountant for the whole sorry mess. It was he who said that no PI makes money, it was he who said that Pete should plough some of his profits from selling something trivial that only made life more annoying into a business that even the IRS didn't bother with. And lazing naked in the hot tub in the garden of his house in Key West it had, briefly, seemed a pretty good plan to PI Peter Amsterdam - even his name fitted after all. But then the blonde walked in, a situation ripped from the pages of the most cliched of detective novels, and before you could say 'pass me that towel' he was on a case that would overturn his life. After nearly ending it.
From the Author
Raymond Chandler meets Woody Allen meets the Coen brothers
The first thing I'd like to say about The Naked Detective is that I had a great time writing it. After twenty years of avoiding first-person, and seven previous Key West novels in which I'd steered clear of a sleuth, I found myself tickled silly to be writing a first-person sleuth book. Not that Pete is much of a detective. Like myself, he's basically chicken. When it comes to solving murders, he'd rather be playing tennis or sipping wine. And yet the story sucks him in. In a manner that some folks might call postmodern, the demands and conventions of the mystery tale get all tangled up with life itself, until Pete has no choice but to muddle through to the only kind of heroism that matters a damn to me--the heroism of an ordinary person reaching deeper than he thought he could. Oh, and there's also a sweet love story with a gorgeous yoga teacher. And, by the way, I think parts of it are pretty funny. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The first thing I'd like to say about The Naked Detective is that I had a great time writing it. After twenty years of avoiding first-person, and seven previous Key West novels in which I'd steered clear of a sleuth, I found myself tickled silly to be writing a first-person sleuth book. Not that Pete is much of a detective. Like myself, he's basically chicken. When it comes to solving murders, he'd rather be playing tennis or sipping wine. And yet the story sucks him in. In a manner that some folks might call postmodern, the demands and conventions of the mystery tale get all tangled up with life itself, until Pete has no choice but to muddle through to the only kind of heroism that matters a damn to me--the heroism of an ordinary person reaching deeper than he thought he could. Oh, and there's also a sweet love story with a gorgeous yoga teacher. And, by the way, I think parts of it are pretty funny. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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.
