Customer Reviews

Scavenger Reef

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I stumbled upon this author after exhausting myself on James W. Hall and Carl Hiassen. It was arguably the best mystery book I've ever read in which no murder is ever committed! (Don't worry, I didn't give anything away.) Shames' lead character, Augie, is a refreshing change from the genre's typical hard-boiled, prone-to-violence protagonist. And Reuben, the gay servant, is a true hero. A pleasure to read! I'll be looking into more Shames titles.

With Scavenger Reef, Laurence Shames leaves his entertaining crowd of displaced mafia thugs and paints a stunning portrait of a creative life in a real-world (if Kew-West-surreal) context. As a growing fan of the Florida mysteries by Leonard, Hiaasen, Hall, Shames, and others I like to identify what I consider the Key Book by each author, the one you most eagerly recommend. With Leonard it's La Brava. Tourist Season is the Key Book from Carl Hiaasen as is Under Cover of Daylight for James W. Hall. For Laurence Shames I definitely recommend Scavenger Reef. The usual literary portrayal of artists is as hacks, or as painters of alegorical canvases that serve the needs of the novel but which never sound like a painting you'd want to look at. The qualities of Augie Silver's canvases are abstract and radiant, they inform the descriptions of every setting in the book. Within this well-told story of friends and enemies is a startling sense of light and space.

Scavenger Reef is the story of an artist whose death could increase his net worth into the millions!! An art dealer schemes to make big money when the artist is reported dead, money that will set her up for life, at a time when her options are quickly running out. As the grand scheme proceeds, several people who own paintings realize that they too can make enough money to dig themselves out of the holes they have dug. The only problem is, what if the artist is in fact alive? Who would be willing or desperate enough to keep the money making plans moving forward, even if that would involve lies, betrayal and ultimately murder.
I found the characters to be entertaining and borderline zany!! What they lack in moral spine , they make up for with an earnest enthusiasm for doing the wrong thing in pursuit of the almighty dollar. This is a tale that romps through-out Key West in the "classic- Florida" manner of taking the story way over the top!!!

After enjoying a few Laurence Shames novels, especially his wonderful 'Sunburn', 'Scavenger Reef' was a total disappointment. While the story has some promise (exposing the hijinx of art collectors and dealers) it winds up being very uneven, and an often a tiresome read. The characters are diverse yet completely unlikable, and I lost interest in the plot early on. Unlike his other books the magic and craziness of Key West doesn't shine through at all.

Bottom line: a mess. Best avoided. Read 'Sunburn' instead.

I discovered Laurence Shames with great pleasure with "Welcome to Paradise." I found it laugh-out-loud funny and the characters were all likable, even the not-so-good ones. So I was delighted when I found Scavenger Reef. Well...to begin with, there was not a funny line in the book.

And then there was the problem of the characters. The hero, Augie Silver, is a great guy with sterling (no pun intended) values...a painter who gives his paintings away to his friends and is disinterested in the trends of the art world or in the money. His wife is a blandly portrayed woman, who, for some reason inspired mad love from Augie, but we don't see any reason other than she's loyal. Part of the problem may have been that I heard this on the audio version and the fellow who read it just wasn't very good at female voices so this poor woman sounds awfully pale and lifeless.

There is a group of Key West locals who are supposed to be colorful and quirky but somehow it seemed like the writer was churning the book out without really caring about it. None of the others, except Ruben the Cuban, comes across as someone you'd care about.

The plot is interesting and the whole idea has a lot of promise. It just didn't quite come alive for me and although I stuck it out, the ending was not worth the effort. I haven't given up on Shames yet, though. From what others say, I think I'll try "Sunburn."

One more comment about the audio version: the reader can help or hinder a book a lot. This fellow certainly gave it a try but I found his voice so nasal that it was unplesant at times. Also the "gay" characters were over-the-top.

Laurence Shames is the greatest ... I wish he would start writing again. This novel goes well beyond the "tropical mystery" genre; it's really an intelligent and engaging thriller -- and the characters live!

Sawrence Shames books are always funny. He has a suble wit that amuses me no end.

I listened to this book (on CDs) and kept listening, hoping that it will get interesting. But no! Finally, about a quarter of the way in the 7th CD -- it's only on 8 CDs! -- I finally had to chuck the CD out and move on. If there was some neat twist in the end then I lost out, but, given the rest of the ho-hum novel, I doubt it.

Although this book attempts to set itself in the same colorful "wacky Florida crime" world of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen, it falls totally flat. The idea is kind of nice, a beloved Key West painter goes missing in a storm and is presumed dead. His agent holds a memorial show of his work in an attempt to drive up the price of the posthumous painters work., this results in a canonizing review by a super-influential critic. A little later a Sotheby's auction is arranged and his friends, agent, and others all try and cash in on the painter's new cachet. Meanwhile, he comes back from the dead, throwing a spanner in everyone's plans! So, someone tries to kill him to maintain the value of the art. It's a neat idea, but not particularly well executed. Airplane reading at best.