American Tropic - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Thomas Sanchez (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the author of Mile Zero come a heart-racing, "power-packed thriller" (San Francisco Chronicle) set in Key West that illuminates a world of dark desires, hidden truths, and colliding destinies at America's famous southernmost continental point.

Key West is being terrorized by a series of bizarre murders committed by a mysterious voodoo assassin. With each new kill, it becomes clearer that the skeleton-clad executioner has an ecological agenda. Everyone dreads becoming the killer's next victim: the rapacious developers, the ruthless scammers, and the common folk undertaking heroic acts to save their community. As the clock counts down to the end of hurricane season, the town will come together in a final dramatic explosion of fear, rage, and striking revelations.

Review Quotes

"[A] power-packed thriller. . . . This neatly plotted book with an exotic setting rises to the level of ferocious dramatic polemic against some of the worst crimes against nature--and, by extension, humanity."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Set in . . . the same location as Thomas Sanchez's masterful Mile Zero. . . . [He] revisits Key West in a tale of corruption, greed, and eco-disasters."
--The Miami Herald

"A large cast of memorable characters. . . . The print equivalent of a . . . film by Robert Altman. . . . It's a swift-moving, entertaining book with a timely message."
--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"[A] fever-dream ecothriller. . . . Incandescent . . . [and] fiery. . . . Sanchez has an arresting voice and his own anger at the depredations of greedy developers and ignorant tourists infuses every page with a sense of near-apocalyptic doom."
--Booklist

"A bold eco-thriller of wild truth and poetry destined to take its place alongside The Monkey Wrench Gang."
--Philip Caputo, author of Acts of Faith and A Rumor of War

"American Tropic propels its cast into a murky world of murder and consequence, with rapid-fire vignettes, an expanding collage of personalities, and a thickening mystery."
--The Toronto Star

"A fever-dream intensity and a pace as breathless as a steamy island night. . . . Turns [Key West] into a . . . nerve-wracking setting . . . [of] Florida noir." --The Tampa Bay Times
"A terrifically written, important thriller!"
--Andrew Davis, director of the blockbuster film The Fugitive

"There are two elements that make American Tropic worth reading. The first is Sanchez's rare ability to peel back the flora and fauna of his real-world settings in order to get into the cracks and crevices of scenery and backgrounds that most people notice fleetingly. . . . The second is the power of his prose, which, after four decades of writing, remains undiminished."
--Bookreporter

About the Author

THOMAS SANCHEZ is a descendant of cattlemen dating back four generations in California to the nineteenth-century Gold Rush. He was born days after his father was killed at the age of twenty-one in the Battle of Tarawa during World War II. Sanchez's novels have received numerous honors, and he has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and is a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Sanchez is also the director of a documentary film, Into the Light, chronicling the life of Jack Garfein, legendary film director and Actors Studio icon, and survivor of eleven concentration camps. Sanchez divides his time between San Francisco, Key West, and Paris.