Jay L. MacDonald Libri

Set against the vibrant backdrop of Key West, the story follows detective Jack Dodge as he investigates the murder of a party girl amidst a summer influx of Hemingway lookalikes. Struggling with his own past and the pressures from local merchants, Dodge's instincts lead him to the enigmatic Wilde sisters and their wild nightclub. As the body count rises, the narrative explores themes of ambition, desire, and the chaotic underbelly of the island's nightlife, culminating in a gripping mystery filled with tension and intrigue.

What makes Dave Barry funny? Stephen King scary? Tami Hoag heartbreaking? All readily admit that where they live greatly influences what they write. Indeed, for both writers and readers, geography may well be destiny when it comes to fiction. Novelists often borrow from their surroundings, consciously or subconsciously, to create their imaginative worlds, just as we readers are drawn to those works that transport us to more exciting and inspiring locales, be it Hemingway's Havana, Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County or McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

In the early 1980s, young Chicago architect Phil Ashley and his live-in girlfriend, TV newscaster Alison Knight, find themselves locked in an unlikely love triangle with a neighboring temptress whose undraped window appearances trigger untimely, unfinished spiritual and emotional issues left over from the psychedelic sixties. When Phil is offered an unusual architectural project set in the countercultural West Coast waterfront community of Samsara, the pair agree to temporarily part ways in hopes that a break will do them good. Little did they suspect that their romantic recess would soon turn chaotic when Samsara's pirate broadcast featuring aqua goddess Pearl explodes into international headlines. Could the untimely uproar help reunite the troubled couple... or bring a dramatic end to their relationship?