Les Standiford is one of the extremely trendy clique of south Florida crime writers which is headed by Karl Hiaasen, and his novels, of which this is the second, carry imprimaturs from the likes of Elmore Leonard, Stephen King and Hiaasen himself. Standiford's elegant prose proceeds at a far statelier pace than that of the brilliant, frenzied Hiaasen, but his smooth as silk plotting and sinister undercurrents make this a marvellous read nonetheless, and his hero, building contractor John Deal (note the similarity to the expression John Doe, hardly a coincidence) is a likable, reasonable sort of chap. A rarity, one imagines, in this steamy, godforsaken milieu.
