Customer Reviews

The Alligator's Farewell

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Annabelle Hardy-Manatos is the chief of Hardy Security and Electronics, a highly regarded private security firm located in Miami and six other cities. Her second in command is Cuban immigrant Dave "The Monekeyman" Enamorado, who is emotionally attached to his hearing impaired boss, a fact that he hides from her.

Dave goes out of his way to smooth the way for his troubled employer. This is not easy to accomplish as Annabelle rejects any protection from anyone. However, that attitude is put to the test when a scientist at the University of the Keys dies after falling into the radioactive coolant of a nuclear reactor. Law enforcement and university authorities want to close the case as a suicide, but the security experts think a homicide occurred. They risk their lives to prove their premise is correct.

Hialeah Jackson (suitable name for an author whose stories occur in Florida) has written an unusual, but intriguing and subtly humorous who-done-it that will leave a smile on the reader's face long after the adrenaline rush slows down. THE ALLIGATOR'S FAREWELL provides a unique look at the Everglades, an adorable antihero, and enigmatic lead protagonist who embodies modern day feminism. This may be the opening gamut of another South Florida mystery series, but this is one that will have readers winning a big payoff.

Harriet Klausner

I was dissappointed in this story.Dave the monkey man seemed to be part Archie McNally and some of Carl Hiassen's characters.The heroine,Anabelle Hardy-Maratos,could have been much more interesting. She is a little stiff and apparently confused.Is she a business executive or a femme fatale. She wears a backless dress to a business meeting?Dave wears womens shoes, which everyone knows are more uncomfortable then mens shoes.The opening line was great,But the story became confusing and boring.The person who kills the scientist is not much of a mystery, and the psychopath remains at large.I would hope that the characters become more realistic,fun, and caring as the series continues.A good beginning,average middle, and strange ending with many loose ends.

Hialeah Jackson (aka Polly Whitney)is a marvelous writer who takes the reader into the complicated world of southern Florida and feel sorry when it is time to leave. This is a thrilling tale with fully realized characters including the beautiful and deaf Annabell Hardy who has taken over her father's detective agency and Dave the Monkeyman her second-in-command and interpreter. The plot concerns a nuclear reactor, academia and topaz...but it is so much more. Most highly recommended with one small caveat. Since I've finished the book, I'm having a hard time getting into another. "The Alligator's Farewell" keeps resonating and makes other mysteries pale in comparison.

Several good scary episodes but I found I was skipping and browsing. The point of view jumped around. Too many eccentrics - not someone I could identify with. If you're comparing to Carl Hiaasen (but why?} he brings in eccentrics but can build a plot around a believable everyday motivation like a child custody battle. Humor not up to Elmore Leonard or Evanovich standards. Dialog sometimes corny and stiff "Yes, Dr Beckwith, if you don't tell us the extent of this catastophe there's no way we can be effective..."

"The Alligator's Farewell" (Dell Pub Co; ISBN: 0440226600) by Hialeah Jackson is the debut paperback in an exciting new South Florida series. The author's gift for painting a portrait of that region, ranging from the eerie glow of a nuclear pool to the hyper-hued buildings of bayfront Miami's corporate district, features an ever changing kaleidoscope of backdrops to compliment the elegantly eclectic protagonists who speed this tale through the mind's eye.

At once suspenseful and poetic, who better to guide us through the aspects of high-tech murder in as-yet-conquered landscapes, than two lead characters who evolve an ever-deepening reliance upon each other in order to transcend their respective limitations in life. The mystique of Annabelle and her mercurial sidekick Dave is as much fun to read and contemplate as is the murder mystery itself. The first chapter delivers the most suspenseful beginning to any book I've ever read; and Jackson's snappy dialogue keeps the story at a perfect pace throughout.

A writer who can create unconventional characters and place them in the often bizarre circumstance of South Florida's skyscrapers-to-sawgrass settings, without allowing the palette to be tainted by cartoonish contrivance along the way, deserves much credit and respect. (And, let's face it, it's easier to spell Hialeah Jackson than Carl Hiaasen!)

Hialeah Jackson has new things to say to us, and she's doing that very thing in memorable ways. Her foray into the freshly coined "swamp noire" subgenre is lush in its landscapes, rich in its characterizations, and clever by design. I found myself breathless at much of the action -- and sometimes the inaction -- within the pages of this book.

This reader is staying tuned for many more adventures to come from the charmingly offbeat "pen" of Hialeah Jackson.