Chasin' The Wind

I have quite a lot in common with writer Michael Haskins though I have never met him. Like him I sailed to Key West from California. He from Southern California, I from the northern part, which makes a difference to Californians. He works for the city of Key West, as do I though in radically different departments. He has written the novel I thought about writing a while back and never got to a conclusion. Or at least the only conclusion I got to was that I had nothing much to say that would fill a coherent book.He on the other hand did get the job done.I read the mystery and found it to be a decent workmanlike job. It's set in contemporary Key West and follows a more or less believable plot involving drinking, killing, boats and Cubans. The first person narrative is peppered with insider commentary on Key West, and I have to confess I found the separation of tourists from us locals to be tedious. I suppose it's necessary to give readers who don't live in Key West the feeling of insider status. Never did I live in a community where being a local conferred so much status inside the heads of some people. And the good writer takes notice of that fact.

For myself I gave up on the idea of writing a book years ago. Aside from the fact I can't stay interested in my own narrative beyond a certain length, it's an unhappy fact that a modern writer has to be a modern salesperson and that isn't me. Perhaps it is Michael Haskins, he has a website chronicling the marketing tedium in a world saturated with mysteries. In his cover photo from the book he actually even looks a bit like me or vice versa:Not really, we're just two white men with beards you might say. If you need a Key West fix this winter check out his novel. It will put you right in the streets of Key West for a few fast paced hours, and it makes more narrative sense than my blog.