Laurence Shames was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951. He graduated with honors from NYU in 1972.
According to his online bio, he knew he wanted to be a writer when he witnessed an American couple in a seaside Italian trattoria. “She was perfectly tan and had a very fine-gauge gold chain looped around her bare tummy. The couple was sharing a liter of white wine in the middle of a sultry afternoon; condensation beaded the carafe. Eye contact was made; the couple turned out to be Americans. The man wiped olive oil from his rather sensual lips and introduced himself as a writer. Shames knew in that moment that he would be one too.”
Since then, he has written more than twenty books, including fourteen books in his Key West Capers series.
In addition to writing novels, he was a contributing editor and ethics columnist for Esquire Magazine and has also been published in Playboy, Outside, Saturday Review, and Vanity Fair.
Books by Laurence Shames
Florida Straits
Published: 1992“People go to Key West for lots of different reasons. Joey Goldman went there to become a gangster…” So begins this classic Key West caper, the hilarious and touching book that launched a much-loved series and introduced the world to Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua Don Giovanni, two of…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Scavenger Reef
Published: 1994“In this business, nothing is as good as dead…” The business in question is the high-end art world, and everyone in this darkly comedic mystery wants a piece of it. When painter Augie Silver is lost at sea in a sailing accident, his many friends among Key West’s artists, writers,…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Sunburn
Published: 1995t’s not easy being the Godfather. All those secrets and all that guilt add up to a terrible burden–a weight that’s killing Vincente Delgatto. When the old man travels to Key West for a visit with his illegitimate son–Joey Goldman, the unlikely hero of FLORIDA STRAITS–Joey floats the idea of…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Tropical Depression
Published: 1996When Murray Zemelman, a.k.a. The Bra King, pops another Prozac and heads to the Keys, he has nothing much in mind beyond a quixotic hope of winning back his first wife, Franny, whom he dumped years before. But when he forms an unlikely friendship with Tommy Tarpon, the last remaining…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Virgin Heat
Published: 1997Mafia princess Angelina Amaro has only ever loved one man-and that lone affair was never consummated. Why not? Because her would-be lover, Sal Martucci, fled into the Witness Protection Program after ratting out Angelina’s father. When Sal is discovered working as a bartender in Key West, the wildly dysfunctional Amaro…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Mangrove Squeeze
Published: 1998Key West seduces people–then asks them to leave in the morning. Take Aaron Katz. He chucked his NY nine-to-five to restore the Mangrove Arms, a rotting wreck of a guest house. Suki Sperakis, aspiring journalist, sees opportunity in Florida, too, though in the meantime she’s peddling ad space for a…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Welcome to Paradise
Published: 1999For friendly, easygoing furniture salesman Al Tuschman, frizzy hair is the least of his problems. Before he’d left New Jersey for a week’s vacation in Key West, he hadn’t an enemy in the world. But a series of puzzling assaults on his privacy, his sanity, and his life has turned…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
The Naked Detective
Published: 2000Meet Pete Amsterdam, the world’s most reluctant sleuth. Naked in his hot tub, Pete is idly reviewing his morning tennis game when trouble arrives in the form of the inevitable blonde. This being Key West, the blonde is not quite what she seems, and it’s useless to explain to her…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Shot on Location
Published: 2013Take three speedboats, a disgruntled ghostwriter, and a hit TV show starring a gorgeous but impossible diva and created by a driven genius who may be losing his marbles. Add a fearless and gleefully profane stuntwoman, an ancient Mafioso with a chihuahua, and a revenge-crazed blonde in gladiator sandals. Stir…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Chickens
Published: 2014veryone’s afraid of something, right? But if our fears sometimes make us look like chickens, they also present opportunities for us to behave like heroes. This is a little story about a fateful confrontation of a very feisty rooster vs. Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua. Which side will back…Read More
Categories: Key West Short Stories , Laurence Shames , Short Stories
Tropical Swap
Published: 2014Wanted: NY apartment in exchange for a great Key West house with swimming pool. In February. Who wouldn’t take a swap like that? Then again, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, as Meg and Peter Kaplan soon discover. Heading south for a supposed dream…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Key West Luck
Published: 2015Sometimes small dreams are the ones most worth fighting for… Phoebe has a dream—a very modest dream. She wants to own a Sno-Cone truck at the beach in Key West. Nicky, her would-be boyfriend, also dreams small. All he wants is a decent gig as a guitar player in a…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
One Strange Date
Published: 2017Perfect romance. Perfect nightmare. Sometimes it’s a fine line. Meet Key West native Renita Daughtry–22, wide-eyed, gorgeous, and very much in love with love. In other words, an irresistible target for professional impostor and pathological liar Richie Pestucci, who plans to charm her into utter helplessness. But there’s just one…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
One Big Joke
Published: 2017“What is with you lately?” Lenny’s wife would like to know. “You’ve been acting like everything is one big joke.” And it’s true—unemployed TV writer Lenny Sullivan has been having trouble seeing his life and times as anything more than fodder for edgy wisecracks. But when he bolts to Key…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
Nacho Unleashed
Published: 2019Key West has a new hero… He weighs four pounds and stands eight inches off the ground. His name is Nacho and he’s the bravest, shrewdest, funniest Chihuahua you will ever meet. He’ll do anything to help his master, the retired Mafioso Bert the Shirt, and his friends—especially the beautiful…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames
The Paradise Gig
Published: 2020FACT: In September 1964, the Beatles, their private flight diverted by Hurricane Dora, made an unplanned visit to Key West. FICTION: Poolside at their motel, the Fab Four fell into conversation with a snappy-dressing local named Bert the Shirt, who listened as the band worked out a harmony to the…Read More
Categories: Detective and Mystery Fiction , Key West Capers , Laurence Shames