Scavenger Reef

January 31, 1994
Following up his hilarious Florida Straits , Shames delivers another dose of criminal high jinks in relentlessly bohemian Key West, although this tale falls a little short of the first's full measure of fun. The questionable artistic merit of iconoclastic painter Augie Silver doesn't matter much while he's still alive--not to him, his lovely wife and local smalltime gallery owner Nina, nor to their gay houseboy Reuben. But when Augie's ship fails to return to harbor after a January sail, things quickly change. Those with Augie Silver art in their possession contemplate their sudden wealth. One considers the purchase of charter boats, another support of his floundering poetic career, a third a new wardrobe of black clothing. Further up the economic scale, a New York gallery owner and her bankrupt husband anticipate high profits as they make a quick grab for all the available Silver pieces. Then Augie returns from his watery grave. Surely prices will drop. Oh, if only Augie were really and truly dead. Such authors as Carl Hiassen and Elmore Leonard also mine the venal weirdness of the Sunshine State, but Shames offers sharp-edged parody without a trace of meanness, portraying his craven cast with a bold, new affection. Perhaps it was only the newness that made the earlier story seem fresher than this. Readers will look forward to the next tale to find out.

SCAVENGER REEF is unusual because it sets up the motives for murder before introducing a potential victim. In the wake of artist Augie Silver's presumed death (by shipwreck), the value of his paintings grows, giving his friends the opportunity to get rich from works he gave them as gifts--an opportunity lost when he turns up alive. The longish first section of the novel, which sets up the various suspects, seems tedious and monotonous, something that could have been abridged without loss. On the plus side, Richard Ferrone's narration capably juggles an unusually large cast of characters, although the size of the cast means that it takes awhile to distinguish who's who. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine