Straits of Fortune [Mass Market Paperback]

Anthony Gagliano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2008

Ex-cop Jack Vaughn, the best thing to happen to crime fiction since Chandler's Philip Marlowe hung up his holster, moved from the gritty streets of New York to Miami to work as a personal trainer. The sun, sand, and tanned bodies of Miami were a welcome distraction from the haunting memory of another cop's death in New York. But, when he becomes entangled with millionaire businessman Colonel Patterson, he realises his newfound peace will be short lived.The Colonel offers Jack a hundred grand to do a seemingly simple favour. But getting involved with the Colonel also means getting involved with his daughter, the exotic, wild-child Vivian, who once broke his heart. Jack had sworn to forget her, but this unforgettable cast of characters lures him back into their double-dealing circle. The deeper he gets, the more Jack finds himself entangled in an ever-expanding web of lies, lust and violence. A dark, hard-boiled look at the dangerous underbelly of glamorous Miami. "Straits of Fortune" is an unforgettable debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gagliano's debut crackles with the same energy that characterized Robert Crais's early Elvis Cole novels. Jack Vaughn, a disgraced New York City cop, has moved to Miami and become a personal trainer—"a gym rat for hire." Retired colonel Andrew Patterson, owner of Pellucid Labs and a former exercise client, offers Jack $100K for an unusual job: sinking the yacht that's parked a couple of hundred yards offshore behind the colonel's beach house, along with a dead man on board. Complicating Jack's decision is the fact that the colonel's daughter, Vivian, happens to be Jack's former lover, who left him for pornographer Randy Matson, the dead man on the boat. Jack resists the job for a while, but eventually climbs aboard, at which point very bad things start to happen. Gagliano's Miami is a jittery mix of beautiful women, handsome bad boys, thugs, smugglers and weird eccentrics, all of whom the author draws with panache. With Jack Vaughn's first outing, Gagliano makes an auspicious beginning on a promising new series. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Miami personal trainer Jack Vaughn's work has brought him into contact with the city's glitterati--fabulously wealthy businesspeople, beautiful women, porn producers, and well-to-do, socially connected MDs. During the hot, humid Miami summer, many leave the city, and Jack has more time for fishing. So a call from the Colonel, a former client and a decorated Green Beret turned owner of a pharma company, is a surprising and welcome break from catching dinner. But the call also spurs memories of Vivian, the Colonel's bewitching daughter; and it pulls Jack into a lethal scheme involving designer drugs, porn, megayachts, Cuban spies, and multiple murders. Before it's over, Jack has been shot at, beaten, drugged, and run over by a speedboat driven by a psychopathic, 'roid-raged giant who was "too crazy for the Green Berets" and on the run from the DEA, FBI, INS, and the Miami PD.Straits of Fortune is a ripping good Florida yarn, part Carl Hiassen, part Randy Wayne White, and first-novelist Gagliano is quick with a good, hard-boiled simile. It's a safe bet that Jack will be back--and that the many fans of Hiassen, White, and the rest of the Florida crime pantheon will add Gagliano to their list of must-reads. Thomas Gaughan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006087810X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060878108
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,237,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sultry scenes combine to make this an enjoyable read!, June 5, 2007

By 

Tenngirl101 "Sandy B" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straits of Fortune

A compelling and well written story of an ex-cop turned personal trainer (due to a set of circumstances beyond his control). Jack Vaughn is a man that most of us ordinary people can relate to. As he struggles to survive in the hot bed of deception called Miami Beach; he finds himself drawn into a treacherous plot by the very people he thought he could trust (almost). Mystery, intrigue, and sultry scenes combine to make this a very enjoyable read and hopefully will be a start to a new series. I can't wait to hear more about Jack Vaughn's exploits!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could be the start of a GREAT new series, May 27, 2007

By 

J.M. (Noirtown, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Straits of Fortune

A thoroughly enjoyable novel, and hopefully the first of many to feature Miami Beach ex-cop/personal trainer/unwilling detective Jack Vaughn. Gagliano has obviously learned from the best, and there will be obvious comparisons to Raymond Chandler, but there's a lot of Ross Macdonald here, too (no insult there -- Macdonald, to me, is one of the most underappreciated practitioners of the genre).

Definitely derivative of those who've come before (and what mystery series isn't?), but with many of its own original touches -- a quick, but satisfying read. Count me in for the next entry in the Jack Vaughn series.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good First Book!, March 26, 2008

By 

Michael A. Newman (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Straits of Fortune

This is the first book by a new author who has an interesting first person way of writing. He writes in first person using the character Jack Vaughn, an ex-cop now a personal trainer living in Florida. Jack sometimes does some unusual sidework and is asked to sink a yacht by a former client, nicknamed the Colonel. There is a catch in that the yacht also contains a dead body of an ex-friend of Jack's, whom Jack's former lover (Vivian) apparently killed and the Colonel wants all the evidence to go away. The Colonel tells Jack that he wants nothing to be tied back to him or his daughter and nobody would ever tie Jack to what happened. For Jack's trouble he will get 100 thousand.

Jack agrees to do the dirty work but immediately suspects something more is afoot when he is acosted by Williams, the Colonel's "Nazi-type" bodyguard. When Jack does the deed he finds out that there is a lot more on the yacht than the Colonel led him to believe and then Jack is hunted by the crazed Williams and has the police after him too. The book moves fairly quick and you are at the end before you know it.

I liked the book and it was a good first effort. Why I didn't give it the full five stars are because:

- It seems a few times like the author tells the story assuming the reader already know things but then later realizes that he left out some things and then throws them in.
- Too many things happen by coincidence. Jack is arrested and sent to a jail where the lead cop's ex-wife just happened to be someone who trained with Jack and she just happens to be a lawyer. Jack contacts her to get him out of jail and she just happens to be related to the dead man on the boat that Jack sunk. Some FBI agents just happen to come to the lawyer's house when Jack is there and just happen to be talking to the lawyer about the dead man, who they are investigating.