Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Alex Rutledge Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Tom Corcoran (Author)

Book Description

Series: Alex Rutledge Mysteries | Publication Date: May 22, 2001

A pleasant Key West Sunday in January turns into a tropical nightmare.

It's early. The tourists are still asleep. Freelance and part-time crime photographer Alex Rutledge bicycles near-vacant streets, taking pictures for his own enjoyment. But he's challenged at a restoration district construction site, accused by a developer of snapping photos for an expose.

An hour later, the city police request Rutledge's forensic photo expertise. A murder victim has been found - at the same work site. Detective Dexter Hayes, Jr., is caustic and inept, and Rutledge is dismissed before he completes his work. An hour later, the county sheriff, Chicken Neck Liska, asks Alex to photograph another murder victim, this time on nearby Stock Island.

Rutledge soon suspects that the murders are linked - illogically, through him. He can't divulge the link to his lover, Teresa Barga, for fear of compromising her police media liaison job. Alex questions the detective's blundering, while the cops begin to link him to the crimes. A powerful real estate broker offers Rutledge an odd, lucrative job. Friends are threatened. He and Teresa dodge gunshots. Yet there is no identifiable antagonist, no motive, no reason for Rutledge to be a hub for evil. To protect himself and his friends, to avoid arrest - unsuccessfully, at first - he must scratch for information on an island where few tell the truth.

At the core of Bone Island Mambo is betrayal, retribution, and revenge. The plot twists in surprising directions, and Corcoran's characters are true characters, never as laid-back as they first appear. Visit Key West, and hang on for dear life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, May 2001: This is Tom Corcoran's third Alex Rutledge mystery, in a series set in the Key West tourists rarely see. Rutledge, a forensic photographer, lives among the eccentrics who make Key West their year-round home. He has made his share of enemies on the island and has romanced many of the women, so there is a feeling of family about this series--with all the dysfunction that word can imply.

Rutledge is photographing a construction project when he is approached by two women, both of whom have ties to the construction project (and apparently to everything else of importance in Key West). Within minutes Rutledge is set upon by two young men who definitely mean him harm. He fights them off. Within hours, Rutledge is called out to photograph two murders--a man dressed in women's clothes and a headless corpse lying on a bench. Rutledge finds himself trying to make sense of the two murders and how they are connected with the attack on him, while also butting heads with some important locals, including Butler Dunwoody, a project developer new to town.

Rutledge can't help feeling suspicious of Dexter Hayes, the watch commander who calls him to photograph the first body. The son of a disgraced cop, Hayes makes no effort to keep the integrity of the crime scene intact and dismisses Rutledge from the scene soon after he starts photographing. Then ex-sheriff Tommy Tucker, another disgraced officer, asks Rutledge to meet with Mercer Holloway, a more entrenched island property developer.

Soon Rutledge is up to his neck in murder and intrigue, and the worst part is trying to tell the good guys from the bad. Corcoran writes in a concise and breezy style, and Alex Rutledge should be attracting more fans to his laid-back lifestyle, which always includes a murder or two. --Otto Penzler

From Publishers Weekly

Key West crime scene photographer Alex Rutledge (The Mango Opera; Gumbo Limbo) returns for his third fast-paced adventure. Someone is recreating a number of bizarre murders dressing victims in drag, making off with heads and our hero is tapped as a main suspect. In clearing his name, Rutledge leads a fine tour of the area, from the Green Parrot bar to fishing flats in the mangrove forests. The best aspect of this novel is summed up in the line, "Key West used to be a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem." Corcoran captures this local atmosphere extremely well he clearly knows the turf (his photographs have appeared on several recordings by Key West mainstay Jimmy Buffett). But the style he uses to make this novel exciting invests every action with the same weight, from opening a beer ("I took the bottle, twisted the cap, spun it into the trash") to Rutledge being chased in his Shelby Mustang by gun-wielding assassins. Corcoran often seems almost postmodern, sitting outside his narrative and noting, "Instead for want of an action word they had messed with us." Or, regarding the convoluted and not very believable solution to the mystery: "`You missed your calling,' I said. `All these cable networks are looking for script writers.' " Sure to please fans of the series and folks who enjoy lightweight Florida crime novels.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312242816
• ISBN-13: 978-0312242817
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,322,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Miss This Key West Mystery, May 24, 2001

By 

Sandie Herron (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Alex Rutledge Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Whew, can Tom Corcoran weave a complicated yarn! I had a blast reading BONE ISLAND MAMBO for the plot, the scenery, the characters, the fun. As woven together as the numerous clues become, Corcoran expertly leads the reader through this intricately textured story.

Alex Rutledge returns for his third adventure living in his own paradise on Key West. Out for an afternoon of photographing the changes taking place around the island, he is suddenly confronted by thugs who don't want his camera or his Cannondale, they want him. Successfully escaping the attack, he finds himself back at the new development on Caroline Street within hours photographing a grim murder scene for the local police department.

What follows is one of the wildest chases on which I've had the pleasure of riding. Another murder takes place, body parts show up later, identities are crossed, a motorcycle is torched, cars are stolen, bullets fly, another murder takes place, knives fly, a bum provides crucial clues, love is found on the pier, and the history of Key West is backdrop to it all. Did I mention the car chase in Alex's Shelby Mustang? Or the ride in the back of the police cruiser? Don't miss the familial conflicts over money -- or the food fight. And, fish aren't the only things caught from a fishing boat.

I'm not so sure the characters are any more tame than the circumstances with a sheriff named "Chicken Neck" Liska and the detective sergeant of the police department nicknamed Dexito. Wiley Fecko lives in a bum's idea of paradise with his own version of a hot water shower. Alex Rutledge keeps himself one step ahead of them all and manages to keep himself alive. Barely.

As zany as this plot may seem, Corcoran doesn't rely on hijinks to make his storyline move. While a zillion things go wrong for Alex Rutledge, they are believably so, kind of a Murphy's Law gone horribly awry. No sooner does Alex extricate himself from one nightmare than he is jostled into another extraordinary situation and from there into coincidence. Still Alex knows that it is the bonds of friendship that ultimately save the day.

Key West, Florida, is a character and a clue and a place all in one. Corcoran captures its flavor and charm and quirks through his deft storytelling abilities. His writing style is rich with details yet not the least bit overdone. He can describe a scene in a few brief sentences, or even words, and conjure up a full-blown picture. Like referring to the overhead wires as a "utility pole forest." Or the way he can use language to depict a scene just so: "Stringy dark hair hung from a Budweiser cap that had faded to pink, then grimed to four dull shades of brown." Perhaps it's his photographer's ability to catch details and depict them with just the right amount of background and flash, focusing in on the subject with full clarity.

After all is said and done, Key West is still Paradise. Don't miss dancing the BONE ISLAND MAMBO.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tom Corcoran Does It Again!, May 15, 2002

By 

Shannon Rogers Simpson (Wellington, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Alex Rutledge Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Tom Corcoran treats us to another look at the life of Alex Rutledge. It is filled with his trademark wit, grit and "Key Westicisms" that can only come from the man that photographed Jimmy Buffett in his early days. I'm dying for the next one, Tom!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flamboyant Novel, June 8, 2001

By 

"edwardn" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Alex Rutledge Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Tom Corcoran's steamy depiction of the Flordia Keys and their colorful denziens will stir up ghosts for anyone who has spent time there. This Alex Rutledge mystery explores a series of murders as the bodies pile up in this tranquil resort town. Rutledge realizes that there is a connection between the murders and that he is the common denominator--then this book really picks up steam!