Men in Miami Hotels: A Novel
*Starred Review* Smith’s literary fever is still running high, following his blistering Three Delays (2010). But in this Florida tale of diabolical passion, he brings heretofore subtle noir elements to the foreground. Cot, a stone-cold gangster working in Miami, returns to his home on Key West to help his estranged mother in the wake of a hurricane and to see Marcella. He and she are incurably mad for each other, even though she’s a lawyer, and her husband is the county prosecutor. Feral to the core, Cot steals his boss’ secret stash of emeralds, thus endangering everyone he knows as gunmen arrive from the mainland to hunt him down. Strung as tight as a bow even as he spoons out tropical banter, Cot is a wizard of vigilance, stealth, and decisive attacks as smoldering rivalries reignite, and evasive tactics involving bicycles, boats, and planes keep everyone in motion. The tension is as thick as the heat and humidity. Smith’s edgy prose is as arresting as Miami art deco, and the psychology at work here is as tangled and dark as a mangrove swamp. With his murderously charismatic protagonist calming himself by quoting Virgil’s Georgics, Smith turns a rogue gangster’s tale into a glimmering, sharply faceted, hauntingly philosophical tragedy of cosmic flaws, stunning betrayals, and bloody revenge. --Donna Seaman