Semiretired journalist Mick Murphy has never been one to shy away from action, but even he's surprised when he is accidentally involved in a shoot-out at the local car wash. Suddenly, Key West, FL, has become the hub of the war on drugs, and almost overnight, Mick becomes the target of two Mexican drug cartels.

In this award-winning debut novel, we explore themes of feminine and age-related empowerment. Karen Grace, a recently fired workaholic seeks meaning and purpose after suffering devastating loss at age fifty. While visiting her Midwestern hometown after many years, Karen Grace risks a few extra days away from the office, to hang out with family and childhood friends. She visits the crumbling homesteads of her prairie ancestors, and rediscovers their immigrant dreams and sacrifices. As a consequence of leaving the office, Karen is fired. Now she's fifteen hundred miles from home, just one more middle-aged worker out of a job in a tough economy. To make matters worse, her husband has just left her for his pregnant girlfriend. At a crossroads, Karen must find the courage to change. Needing time to think, she agrees to take an elderly neighbor on one last road trip, but on a deserted highway in Wyoming, Karen is forced to make a lethal and life-changing decision. Scroll up and buy to join her adventure today.

The introduction to this guide contains general information about the history, land, climate, flora, and fauna. This introductory chapter also includes an outline of the range of activities available in the Florida Keys and the Everglades National Park. The next chapter, Travel Information takes a deeper look at the ins and outs of traveling to this area. This section not only includes important information about costs, transportation, and getting to Florida but also includes helpful tips about the best time of the year to visit the area and what to wear and do on and off-season. The rest of the book focuses on Key Largo and the Upper Keys. It includes sections called At a Glance; Getting Here & Getting Around; Area History & Highlights; Sightseeing; Adventures; Where to Stay; Where to Eat; and Nightlife. These sections cover all of the basic what to do and how to do it. Likewise, several maps accompany each section, clearly marked with the various facilities described. However, there are also a few unique aspects within these sections and within this book in general. For instance, all the information is based upon the authors' real life experiences, no internet or third-hand research is included. This allows the author to explain the various topics in a much smoother, conversational style given the reader a feeling of insider knowledge. This aspect also allow the author to rate lodgings (naming some as author's picks), give guidelines on the costs of meals (using a dollar sign rating system), and make recommendations on what areas to visit and activities to do depending upon your vacation time. Another unique aspect to this guide is that it focuses on active things to do. This book does describe sightseeing potentials but also looks at fishing, diving, and snorkeling opportunities; formal and informal nature and eco-tours; and describes variety of cultural events and other activities. Many of these activities are low cost or no cost anytime opportunities that can be enjoyed by walking. These unique aspects make the information in this book more accessible to those who like being active when they travel and those who would rather go fishing or birding than shopping or visiting the local museums. -- Tami Brady. The newly updated edition of Bruce Morris' Adventure Guide Florida Keys & Everglades National Park is out, and any destination-bound Everglades traveler would do well to obtain a copy. From places to stay and snorkeling experiences to eco tours and cultural adventures, the latest updated information is imparted in a spirited set of outdoor adventure tips. A 'must' for any serious about Florida. -- Midwest Book Review

It started with the searing sound of a slide careening up the neck of an electric guitar. In 1970, twenty-three-year-old Bruce Iglauer walked into Florence’s Lounge, in the heart of Chicago’s South Side, and was overwhelmed by the joyous, raw Chicago blues of Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. A year later, Iglauer produced Hound Dog’s debut album in eight hours and pressed a thousand copies, the most he could afford. From that one album grew Alligator Records, the largest independent blues record label in the world. Bitten by the Blues is Iglauer’s memoir of a life immersed in the blues—and the business of the blues. No one person was present at the creation of more great contemporary blues music than Iglauer: he produced albums by Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Professor Longhair, Johnny Winter, Lonnie Mack, Son Seals, Roy Buchanan, Shemekia Copeland, and many other major figures. In this book, Iglauer takes us behind the scenes, offering unforgettable stories of those charismatic musicians and classic sessions, delivering an intimate and unvarnished look at what it’s like to work with the greats of the blues. It’s a vivid portrait of some of the extraordinary musicians and larger-than-life personalities who brought America’s music to life in the clubs of Chicago’s South and West Sides. Bitten by the Blues is also an expansive history of half a century of blues in Chicago and around the world, tracing the blues recording business through massive transitions, as a genre of music originally created by and for black southerners adapted to an influx of white fans and musicians and found a worldwide audience. Most of the smoky bars and packed clubs that fostered the Chicago blues scene have long since disappeared. But their soul lives on, and so does their sound. As real and audacious as the music that shaped it, Bitten by the Blues is a raucous journey through the world of Genuine Houserockin’ Music.

Desiree Dean, a runaway wealthy kid, accidentally sets a tattoo parlor ablaze, resulting in a mysterious explosion that leaves the Florida Gulf Coast fishing village of Cedar Key in an uproar.

Examining the blues genre by region, and describing the differences unique to each, make this a must-have for music scholars and lay readers alike. A melding of many types of music such as ragtime, spiritual, jug band, and other influences came together in what we now call the blues. Blues: A Regional Experience is the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference book of blues performers yet published, correcting many errors in the existing literature. Arranged mainly by ecoregions of the United States, this volume traces the history of blues from one region to another, identifying the unique sounds and performers of that area. Each section begins with a brief introduction, including a discussion of the region's culture and its influence on blues music. Chapters take an in-depth look at blues styles from the following regions: Virginia and the tidewater area, Carolinas and the Piedmont area, the Appalachians and Alabama, the Mississippi Delta, Greater Texas, the Lower Midwest, the Midwest, the Northeast, and California and the West. Biographical sketches of musicians such as B.B. King and T-Bone Walker include parental data and up-to-date biographical information, including full names, pseudonyms, and burial place, when available. The work includes a chapter devoted to the Vaudeville era, presenting much information never before published. A chronology, selected artists' CD discography, and bibliography round out this title for students and music fans.

Steve Cushing, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated public radio staple Blues before Sunrise, has spent over thirty years observing and participating in the Chicago blues scene. In Pioneers of the Blues Revival, he interviews many of the prominent white researchers and enthusiasts whose advocacy spearheaded the blues' crossover into the mainstream starting in the 1960s. Opinionated and territorial, the American, British, and French interviewees provide fascinating first-hand accounts of the era and movement. Experts including Paul Oliver, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Sam Charters, Ray Flerledge, Paul Oliver, Richard K. Spottswood, and Pete Whelan chronicle in their own words their obsessive early efforts at cataloging blues recordings and retrace lifetimes spent loving, finding, collecting, reissuing, and producing records. They and nearly a dozen others recount relationships with blues musicians, including the discoveries of prewar bluesmen Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and Bukka White, and the reintroduction of these musicians and many others to new generations of listeners. The accounts describe fieldwork in the South, renew lively debates, and tell of rehearsals in Muddy Waters's basement and randomly finding Lightning Hopkins's guitar in a pawn shop. Blues scholar Barry Lee Pearson provides a critical and historical framework for the interviews in an introduction.