Key West Capers Series

Book 1

Vincente Delgatto, the last great Mafia Godfather, is on vacation after the death of his wife. He's busy wearing out his welcome with the wife of his son Joey, when Joey suggests he writes a book of his memoirs. Key West is a million miles from the mean streets of New York, and the last great Godfather is persuaded by amixture of sunshine and nostalgia to dish the dirt to a local hack - It could be the bestseller that will make Arty Magnus's name.

Book 4

Tropical Depression

by Laurence Shames

Published 1 March 1996

Businessman Murray Zemelman is on the lookaout for a new life away from Prozac and the New Jersey snow. Sunny Florida offers a second chance with his first wife and a scenond career running the first legal casino in the local Native American reservation. Murray reckons he might have the streets smart enough to make a fortune by turning the tables on the local white mafia. But, the aligators aren't the only man eaters on the island reservation, and the native Mafioso is also on the look out for an easy lunch.

Book 5

Virgin Heat

by Shames and Laurence Shames

Published 1 March 1997

The natural sucessor to Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen joins Orion with a hilarious tale of love and the Mafia in Key West. For ten years now Angelina Amaro has kept a secret so deep, so personal, that she couldn't share it with anyone. She is in Love. In love with Ziggy Maxx (nee Sal Martucci) the man who betrayed her father, Mafia capo Paul Amaro. Ziggy is living a new life as a bartender in Key West but when Angelina spots his oh-so familiar hands making a cocktail in a holiday video taken by her uncleshe leaves New York to seek him out. Paul Amaro, just out of prison, is dismayed when it's suggested that Angelina may have gone looking for her lost love. Vigin Heat is a tale of love, the mob, revenge, redemption, and some minor cross dressing.

Book 6

Mangrove Squeeze

by Laurence Shames

Published 1 March 1998

A mixture of a burnt out banker, burgeoning romance and a bunch of Russians out to make some easy money in Key West, create an intoxicating novel that's "as tasty as a mango sundae"

Book 7

Welcome to Paradise

by Laurence Shames

Published 27 April 1999

Before mild-mannered furniture salesman Al Tuschman left New Jersey for a week in Key West, he hadn't an enemy in the world. But a series of puzzling assaults on his privacy, his sanity, and his life has turned his stay at the tasteful Paradise Hotel into Tropical Hell. Maybe it's the humidity. Maybe the Sambuca. Or maybe it's the nickname emblazoned on his license plate: Big Al.

For Big Al Marracotta, Mafia capo, a Florida getaway means outrunning a career in crime and rancid calamari. For Katy Sansone it's a bid for sunshine and self-respect--until a case of mistaken identity pits the confused woman against a bafflement of Als and more danger than any one of them had reason to pack for. Now, if Tuschman doesn't watch his back, somebody's going to be reporting the death of another salesman. . . .

Book 8

The Naked Detective

by Laurence Shames

Published 13 June 2000

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.

Book 9