Böcker av Laurence Shames

Two ghostwriters walk into a Key West bar...and wobble out with swapped gigs, switched identities, and a dicey bluff that could cost them not only their careers but their lives. Will the Sports Betting King ever figure out that his memoir is being written by a fraud? Will the presumably dead bestselling novelist cooperate by staying dead? Will Darla the beautiful tourist short-circuit the whole crazy caper with her high-voltage romantic appeal? Unfolding under warm Florida sunshine and spiked with delicious publishing-insider dish, Sunset Bluff provides both belly laughs and wistful sighs as it considers ambitions high and low, friendships true and false, and the very elusive virtue known as authenticity.

Ever notice that things get sticky when family comes to town? Pete Amsterdam, world's most reluctant private eye, is living the bachelor dream in Key West, Florida. Then his mother, the undaunted Gertie, shows up with her new hip, her large suitcase, and her gift for cutting remarks. Penelope Calabro, world's most fetching pickleball instructor, has been managing to outrun her troubled, secret past. Until her Uncle Gianni appears one humid day with a mysterious hit-man following much too close for comfort. Before long, Gertie has guilt-tripped Pete into taking on Gianni's very complicated problems, since Gianni is her last best hope for a scintillating late-life romance. But Pete has fallen for the irresistible Penelope...and run headfirst into a perplexing question: Who's the hit-man really after-the uncle or the niece? With a midnight deadline to solve the puzzle looming, Pete finds himself with only the most improbable of allies-an ancient Mafioso named Bert the Shirt and his neurotic chihuahua, Nacho, along with a couple of ragged locals who live in an old food truck in the mangroves. Can this ill-assorted team beat the odds and save a couple of lives? Told with Laurence Shames's trademark mix of comedy, suspense, and romance, Relative Humidity raises the temperature with crackling dialogue, steamy Key West atmosphere, and achingly on-point observations about the genetic accidents known as families.

Some people are born to lead and destined to teach by the example of living life to the fullest, and facing death with uncommon honesty and courage. Peter Barton was that kind of person.Driven by the ideals that sparked a generation, he became an overachieving Everyman, a risk-taker who showed others what was possible. Then, in the prime of his life--hugely successful, happily married, and the father of three children--Peter faced the greatest of all challenges. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey that was not only frightening and appalling but also full of wonder and discovery.With unflinching candor and even surprising humor, Not Fade Away finds meaning and solace in Peter's confrontation with mortality. Celebrating life as it dares to stare down death, Peter's story addresses universal hopes and fears, and redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain, of breaking through to personal faith, and of achieving peace after bold and sincere questioning.