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 known for his critically acclaimed series of Key West novels, he has also authored non-fiction and enjoyed considerable though largely secret success as a collaborator and ghostwriter. Shames has penned four New York Times bestsellers. These have appeared on four different lists, under four different names, none of them his own. This might be a record. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, to chain-smoking parents of modest means but flamboyant emotions, Shames graduated summa cum laude from NYU in 1972 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. His education has had no influence whatsoever on his later life or career. It was on an Italian beach in the summer of 1970 that Shames first heard the sacred call of the writer's vocation.
