Florida Happens: Tales of Mystery, Mayhem, and Suspense from the Sunshine State

Missing pot roasts make an older woman question her memory. Frozen iguanas fall from the trees as two trailer park denizens try to prove an overdose was actually murder. A young woman suspects foul play when her cat disappears. A flat tire in a bad neighborhood puts a woman in danger. An old man who once worked for the mob tries to make things right with his daughter and granddaughter, but old habits die hard.

Florida has a reputation for being stranger than fiction, and given the wealth of peculiar headlines that originate in the Sunshine State, it’s hard to argue that reputation isn’t well-earned. So it’s only natural to set a crime and mystery anthology in a state where crime and entertainment walk hand-in-hand.

Florida Happens is a very entertaining collection of stories, but they (mostly) leave behind the wackiness that preoccupies some famous Florida writers, instead opting to tell more sinister tales with those peculiar headlines as background color only. So while there is a fair share of silliness here, don’t expect the crimes to be any less heinous or contemptible. On the contrary, while funny is funnier in Florida, bad guys are worse there as well.