Joey Goldman's flying south for the winter. The second-string New York wiseguy just packed up his faithful girlfriend Sandra and took off for Key West -- land of sun, surf and sleaze -- where a small-time hustler in search of a racket can score the big one. If he can find it. Enter Joey's half br...
For years I've been cursing the heavens and randomly shoving small children to the floor in the local grocery store's cereal aisle, not because I'm a bad man, but because not a single one of Laurence Shames's loosely related Key West books were available on Kindle. To those of us here at FPF, tha...
Murray Zemelman—lingerie mogul, a.k.a. the Bra King—wakes up one morning, starts his car in the confines of his airtight garage, and contemplates the worst. But instead of doing himself in, he pops a Prozac and hits the road, waving good-bye to his trophy wife, the thriving brassiere business, an...
I enjoyed the first two Laurence Shames books I read. I thought they had a certain whacky sitcom 1970s TV show kind of vibe and I enjoyed them for what they are. The quality of the writing in this book equaled the others but lacked the charm and humor. While I warmed up to the characters in the ...
Big Al Marracoto is a player in the New York City mafia. Big Al Tuschman is a furniture salesman in New Jersey. Their individual state license plates say 'Big Al'. They end up in Key West on vacation at the same time. The guys hired to annoy Big Al Marracoto, get their Big Al's confused. But all ...
One quarter of this book was somewhat intriguing, But only after you get through the first 3 quarters of it. First major portion of it had to much redundancy,examples being, describing in way to much detail how one character's little dog had problems producing bowel movements and talking about a ...
When Augie Silver disappeared at sea during a sudden storm, it was a loss felt initially by his young wife and by his crew of drinking cronies. When word of his apparent drowning extended beyond the Key West world Augie had made his home, however, his loss was felt by a greater number of people. ...
The Naked Detective is a poor man's version of a Carl Hiassan Novel. The hero, Pete Amersterdam, isn't a real detective. He goes to remodel his house and his accountant convinces him that he can get a huge tax deduction if he opens a detective's office in his house, runs an ad, etc. Amesterdam ge...
Having failed to distinguish himself in any of those professions, he turned to writing full-time in 1976 and has not done an honest day's work since. His basic laziness notwithstanding, Shames has published twenty books and hundreds of magazine articles and essays. Best kn...
Joey Goldman had grown up in a tenement in Queens. His wife, Sandra Dugan, had lived in a fourth-floor walk-up in Brooklyn. Their home in Key West was therefore the fulfillment of a fantasy held by cramped apartment dwellers everywhere. It was mostly open space and windows. Glass doors slid aside...