What is it about Florida, especially south Florida, that attracts and breeds such loonyness? Never a day passes that HuffPo or m.fark.com or even mainstream news does not have some luscious bit of unbelievable Florida crazy to astound us with.

Florida is the perfect setting for almost any fiction. While remaining in the USA, the author can incorporate exotic mangrove swamps full of alligators and the occasional crocodile, snakes and other critters, clouds of insects, dismal heat, beautiful sand beaches, glorious gulf sunsets, college kids on spring break, rich snowbirds, fancy hotels, cheap motels, gun runners, dope runners, boat people, Magic Mike, and and and. I don't know when the first crime story set in Florida was written but the 1948 film "Key Largo" starred Humphrey Bogart and that film was based on a 1939 Broadway show of the same name. Later we had John MacDonald's Travis McGee and a slew of hilarious Florida books by Elmore Leonard. Author Dallas Murphy (in itself a perfect name) is heir to all this and he revels in it.

Doom Loomis is fresh out of jail and looking for work. Instead he attends his father's funeral and finds out that his father did not die of natural causes. He was murdered. "Apparent Wind" is the story of a land grab that turns into a failed resort that turns into a revenge grift that turns into a murder (or two) that turns into… you get the picture.

Mr. Murphy lays it on with a trowel and the resulting tale is rollicking fun and absolutely Florida.

I received a review copy of "Apparent Wind" by Dallas Murphy (Brash) directly from the publisher. "Apparent Wind" is one of the older books that Brash is reissuing in print and digital forms. It was first published in 1991 by Pocket Books. ( )