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    Back to Blood: A Novel
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    Back to Blood: A Novel
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    Back to Blood: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)12 hours

    Back to Blood: A Novel

    Written by Tom Wolfe

    Narrated by Lou Diamond Phillips

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A big, panoramic story of the new America, as told by our master chronicler of the way we live now.

    As a police launch speeds across Miami's Biscayne Bay-with officer Nestor Camacho on board-Tom Wolfe is off and running. Into the feverous landscape of the city, he introduces the Cuban mayor, the black police chief, a wanna-go-muckraking young journalist and his Yale-marinated editor; an Anglo sex-addiction psychiatrist and his Latina nurse by day, loin lock by night-until lately, the love of Nestor's life; a refined, and oh-so-light-skinned young woman from Haiti and her Creole-spouting, black-gang-banger-stylin' little brother; a billionaire porn addict, crack dealers in the 'hoods, "de-skilled" conceptual artists at the Miami Art Basel Fair, "spectators" at the annual Biscayne Bay regatta looking only for that night's orgy, yenta-heavy ex-New Yorkers at an "Active Adult" condo, and a nest of shady Russians. Based on the same sort of detailed, on-scene, high-energy reporting that powered Tom Wolfe's previous bestselling novels, BACK TO BLOOD is another brilliant, spot-on, scrupulous, and often hilarious reckoning with our times.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateOct 23, 2012
    ISBN9781619691759
    Unavailable
    Back to Blood: A Novel
    Author

    Tom Wolfe

    Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) was one of the founders of the New Journalism movement and the author of contemporary classics like The Right Stuff and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, as well as the novels The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. As a reporter, he wrote articles for The Washington Post, the New York Herald Tribune, Esquire, and New York Magazine, and is credited with coining the term, “The Me Decade.” Among his many honors, Tom was awarded the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Award, the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, the National Humanities Medal, and National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lived in New York City.

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    Reviews for Back to Blood

    3.5/5

    182 ratings26 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a big doorstop of a novel that is set in the steaming immigrant stew that is Miami, Florida, and is the perfect spot for Tom Wolfe's Dickensian prose. He weaves a story full of rich characters: Nester Machado, a first generation Cuban-American trying to serve honorably on the Miami Police department; his girlfriend, Magdalena who dumps him for her boss, a noted sex addiction psychiatrist, hoping to strike it rich in Miami society; a Haitian College professor who is trying to move up in class, but is thwarted by his son who is drawn to the American black gansta culture; the canny Cuban mayor matching wits with his black police chief; retirement communities full of old Jewish yentas and Russian oligarchs looking for a big score.In the midst of all of this Wolfe spins the story of a clever art forgery scam at the Miami Art Basal, that somehow Nestor and a reporter from the Miami Herald manage to uncover. This is not The Bonfire of Vanities that was arguably Wolfe's masterpiece, but it's a great page turner.
    • 2/5
      Story: Just ok. I really really liked I am Charlotte Simmons and BoV but I felt like this story was a bit forced. Some people have complained that this novel is just a re-telling of BoV and Man in Full (I have not read) in Miami. As someone who grew up in south Florida I appreciated the outsider's perspective on how politics are affected by class-ism/racism in the Miami area and how the different ethnic groups intermingle (or don't in some cases). That said, the story itself dragged at times and I felt that a few characters could have been developed more. I also hated the ending...it was such a non-ending and really didn't accomplish anything.

      Performance of audio: Pretty good. I can only imagine it is difficult to perform a Tom Wolfe book out loud because of Wolfe's onomatopoeia love. I thought the narrator did a good job with all the sounds and the wittier sections. However his female voice wasn't always convincing and his laugh (while meant to be obnoxious) was too much at times.

      Overall: B-/C
    • 3/5
      Definitely not his best. I usually enjoy his characters, but these were all one dimensional.
    • 2/5
      Over recent years I have found myself wondering why John Cleese and Steve Martin seemed to stop being funny, or at what point did Paul McCartney's talent dry up. Alongside these perplexing questions I would like to know what happened to Tom Wolfe, who seems to offer an immense literary enigma. How can one person write a novel as marvellous, engrossing and iconic as [The Bonfire of the Vanities] and follow it up, at a space of several years each time, with works as lamentable as [A Man in Full], [I Am Charlotte Simmons] and, now, [Back to Blood]. [The Bonfire of the Vanities] caught the dynamic of the late 1980s with searing accuracy, hurling would-be Master of the Universe Sherman McCoy down from his Olympian life after literally taking a wrong turning in the Bronx. Like Thackeray's [Vanity Fair], this was a novel without a hero through it abounded with victims, including McCoy who was ground down through the maws of a rotten criminal prosecution system after his car knocks down Henry Lamb, a young man from the Bronx who is left on a life support system. A rich cast of characters all pursue their separate agendas, each of which is handed masterfully by Wolfe, even though this was his first venture into writing fiction.Twenty-five years and three novels on and Wolfe's grip seems to have loosened. He does, it is true, come up with an intriguing plot hook, with Nestor Camacho, a Cuban American police officer in Miami becoming involved in the arrest of a Cuban refugee desperate to seek asylum in the United States. His dramatic arrest is captured on live television, and Camacho initially basks in the adulation of his fellow officers, only to find himself ostracised within the Miami Cuban American community who consider that he has turned his back on his roots. Tensions mount and Nestor's life lurches from one crisis to the next.Though he has a potentially very rich seam to mine, Wolfe never manages to secure the reader's empathy. In [The Bonfire of the Vanities] Sherman McCoy inhabits a world utterly removed from that of most of the readers, and he is an arrogant and spoiled character, but Wolfe was able to make the reader feel his frustration and disbelief as the campaign for "justice" take hold and the District Attorney, with a view to impending re-election campaign, allows himself to be carried along with flow. In this novel I found that I really wasn't interested in Nestor's plight.
    • 4/5
      A curate's egg of a book - in some ways Tom Wolfe doesn't disappoint, I got a clear idea of the demographic tensions within Miami and of the crazy Emperor's New Clothes situation regarding Art Basel Miami. But the book really needed some serious editing and the story-line just fizzled out like a damp squib. I often think that famous writers are badly edited in their later works - maybe publishers think they don't need editing because they are already well known; or maybe publishers think they can save money by not bothering to use a good editor on their books. Whatever the reason, it does the author no service whatsoever. Crazy coincidence is that Art Basel Miami has just taken place and celebs attending it - exactly as Wolfe describes - are featured in the UK press. If I hadn't read the book it would have all gone right over my head!
    • 2/5
      While the story was entertaining is a sad sort of pathetic way, there was no point to the story and the ending was flat. I was generally disappointed but was kept somewhat interested hoping that the story was truly going somewhere.
    • 4/5
      If Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino decided to make a movie together, a la Do the Right Thing meets Pulp Fiction, and set in Miami, Back to Blood would be that movie. It was a very cinematic read. I have never read Tom Wolfe before, this was my first novel of his, but his style is very onomatopeic? Is that a word? He liked using words that are sounds instead of describing the sound itself. So it was CRAASSH, SMACK, HAH HAHA instead of he crashed, it smacked, or she laughed. It made for a very interesting read.

      Back to Blood tells very different narratives that are connected in present day Miami where there is a cesspool of racism running rampant but that's just the way life is. The title, Back to Bloood, refers to being with your own kind. It goes back to your kin.

      Officer Nestor Camacho is heralded as a hero to his whiter bretheren on the force for doing his job and rescuing a Cuban refugee. Of course, to his Cubano family, he is villified for sending a poor man back ti Cuba and is ousted from his community.

      To make matters even worse, his girlfriend Magdalena, breaks up with him after letting him know that she's been dating someone else. Specifically, her boss Dr. Norman Lewis. Lewis is a psychiatrist specalized in porn addiction.

      Other narratives a country bumpkin news reporter looking into a case of art fraud, given to a museum by a highly esteemed Russian, much to the chargin of his news editor, a Creole man who refuses to speak the language but French and grows increasingly at his teenage son doing so and falling into a bad crowd, and Miami's first African American police chief fighting political mind games with the Cubano mayor.

      Wolfe did such a good job with these distinct but essentiall the same personalities. I felt bad for Nestor; to be shunned by your family and community is horrible. Speaking for myself, Latino communities are incredibly familial based and to branch off is very difficult. Especially since the collective us very set in their rules not realizing that the world or place you're living plays by a different set.

      Growing up in New York City has spoiled me. I am not blind to the rascism but I've never felt it touch me or my family. Perhaps it does happen and I am so used to it I don't realize it anymore.
    • 4/5
      If I had read this book instead of listened to it, I t would have gotten a "meh" rating. Wolfe is great at social satire, but theree are huge logic gaps in the plot, and his characters come perilously close to being two dimensional cardboard cut outs. Lou Diamond Phillipsis a fantastic reader. He does great accents (Cubans, yuppies, Russian oligarchs, Florida retirees), and it sounds like he's having so much fun. A very pleasurable listening experience.
    • 3/5
      A major disappointment. The first half of the book works as this astute writer-reporter considers contemporary Miami. One feels blessed to have such a trenchant observer, and his characters and settings are peerless. The second half dies and the last third...What was clear and beautifully etched becomes murky and uninspiring. The misogyny the author directs toward a major character is insulting to women and eventually makes one lose interest in the work. Where at first there was balance between competing life views--including the oligarchic 1% vs. the 99%--eventually the characters become uninteresting, the plot becomes limited rather than open-ended, and ultimately Wolfe loses me as reader before I reach the last page and following multiple skims.
    • 5/5
      OMG Tom Wolfe. I had just returned from a week of driving around Miami when I got this book. I fear this colors my judgement because Tom is so spot on! Only four and a half stars because I am not a giant fan of fiction, although his is so borderline it should be in its own category. Loved it.
    • 4/5
      Tom Wolfe is such a wonderfully descriptive writer. You feel like you're right there at the scene. He paints a vivid picture. Only problem is I'm not interested in Cuban cops chasing illegal immigrants. So I didn't care much about the characters or the story in Back to Blood. But if that sort of story appeals to you, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell it better that Wolfe.
    • 5/5
      I haven't read a Tom Wolfe book since Man in Full came out and I enjoyed Back to Blood thoroughly! Set in Miami, world collide involving a Cuban cop, an Anglo journalist, a Russian oligarch, a porn addicted billionaire, a French-Haitian sophisticate, and a Cuban-nurse intent on rising up in the world, to name just a few. Art fraud is committed, feats of heroism occur, race relations heat up, reality shows are choreographed. It is a enjoyable study in satire and pure Tom Wolfe.
    • 4/5
      Despite Wolfe's annoying tendency to describe sex acts and female body parts in the manner of a lecherous old man, Back to Blood was a real page turner. It was easy to feel invested in the character's stories and I eagerly flipped each page to see what would happen next.
    • 5/5
      Like Tom Wolfe's first three novels, Back to Blood begins with the thoughts and actions of a single character in a scene that will determine the fates of several others. In this novel, Miami police officer Nestor Comacho becomes involved in a rescue of a Cuban refugee attempting a life-threatening escape to sanctuary in the USA. When he is praised by some and damned by others for his rescuing efforts, Nestor, the grandson of a Cuban boat émigré, experiences a disruption of his plans for a slow but determined rise in the ranks of the Miami Police Department.Nestor's police career is put on hold because of the intense cultural tension between Cubans and African Americans that is brought into the open because of his seemingly heroic efforts on the Bay of Biscayne. His friendship with a young white Ivy League schooled newspaper reporter, however, opens an avenue to unsanctioned police work concerning the Russian mafia's presence in Miami Art Basel cultural events. At many levels, impenetrable boundaries between people with great wealth and those with limited means are described in the context of Nestor's occupational, cultural, and social status.Tom Wolfe is a 20th Century novelist who continues writing about his world in the 21st Century. The 81 year-old observer of North American culture is commonly associated with the "New Journalism" in which literary techniques are used in a descriptive, realistic manner characteristic of journalism in the middle 1900's. This style is a carry-over from his early career as a reporter and evolved into the writing of bestselling novels including: The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, I Am Charlotte Simmons, and now Back to Blood.I like the journalistic style in Back to Blood that allows the characters to fully develop and yet symbolize the follies of contemporary society. Mr. Wolfe allows readers to like/dislike his characters and care about their fates while he structures his novel realistically with subtle ironic humor. This is in contrast to younger writers (like Jonathan Lethem in Chronic City) who use a sledgehammer approach to their sarcastic descriptions of characters acting in bizarre circumstances to lay out interminable ironic stories. Another younger author, Chad Harbach, used a style similar to Wolfe and wrote a much better novel, The Art of Fielding. Back to Blood is Tom Wolfe's best novel, a great joy to read.
    • 5/5
      Tom Wolfe weaves a wonderful story! Starting with characters like the Russian who buys his way into Miami high society by endowing an art collection comprised completely of forgeries, a young Cuban American police officer who just tries to do his job and seems unable to avoid publicity, the lovely starry eyed Cuban American ingenue who cannot seem to get her priorities clear, and the W.A.S.P. editor of the local paper who dreads having to print a story which may upset his wife and/or his social standing. If that doesn't draw you in, perhaps the themes which are embedded in the roiling, cross-cultural morays and expectations in an American city filled with a a wide range of ethnic, financial, and social strata will do it. It is just a well written story which illuminates issues we see everyday in our lives as Americans.
    • 4/5
      Typically Tom Wolfe. Not much character development but a good analysis of contemporary Miami and the confluence of ethnicity and class. Balzacian in this treatment of life in the twenty first century. Too long. At times I was slogging through it but was worth the effort, barely. Wolfe is a talented writer. The novel has lots of energy. The prose is energetic.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed listening to this book with its provision of the underlying story that told why the characters behaved as they did. Lou Diamond Phillips was PERFECT as the narrator. I couldn’t stop listening!
    • 5/5
      Lou Diamond’s narration of this was terrific in my opinion,I have a whole new respect for Him now ,Tom Wolfe awesome as always ,Fun Audio book !
    • 3/5
      Bonfire of the vanities - part deux (as the author would probably put it).
    • 5/5
      Great book and a really great narrator !! Makes the whole experience so much better.
    • 4/5
      Tom Wolfe focuses on Miami in this novel and, as he has been known to do, paints a vivid and highly sharp-eyed fictional snapshot. An insipid newspaper editor, a young, hard-charging reporter, a super-fit Cuban cop with good intentions, his status-seeking former girlfriend, and an extremely shady Russian art collector all figure into the story, along with others they touch along the way. Wolfe is very adept at creating these characters and bringing them to life. His list of acknowledgements shows he spent time in the city with people, doing things, experiencing the place, and it shows in the writing.At first I wondered if Wolfe’s style was still relevant – words all capitalized, multiple explanation points, creative spacing, but that settles down as the story progresses onward into a masterful exposition of all the foibles and strengths that people display, only it’s in Miami.
    • 5/5
      Like Tom Wolfe's first three novels, Back to Blood begins with the thoughts and actions of a single character in a scene that will determine the fates of several others. In this novel, Miami police officer Nestor Comacho becomes involved in a rescue of a Cuban refugee attempting a life-threatening escape to sanctuary in the USA. When he is praised by some and damned by others for his rescuing efforts, Nestor, the grandson of a Cuban boat émigré, experiences a disruption of his plans for a slow but determined rise in the ranks of the Miami Police Department.Nestor's police career is put on hold because of the intense cultural tension between Cubans and African Americans that is brought into the open because of his seemingly heroic efforts on the Bay of Biscayne. His friendship with a young white Ivy League schooled newspaper reporter, however, opens an avenue to unsanctioned police work concerning the Russian mafia's presence in Miami Art Basel cultural events. At many levels, impenetrable boundaries between people with great wealth and those with limited means are described in the context of Nestor's occupational, cultural, and social status.Tom Wolfe is a 20th Century novelist who continues writing about his world in the 21st Century. The 81 year-old observer of North American culture is commonly associated with the "New Journalism" in which literary techniques are used in a descriptive, realistic manner characteristic of journalism in the middle 1900's. This style is a carry-over from his early career as a reporter and evolved into the writing of bestselling novels including: The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, I Am Charlotte Simmons, and now Back to Blood.I like the journalistic style in Back to Blood that allows the characters to fully develop and yet symbolize the follies of contemporary society. Mr. Wolfe allows readers to like/dislike his characters and care about their fates while he structures his novel realistically with subtle ironic humor. This is in contrast to younger writers (like Jonathan Lethem in Chronic City) who use a sledgehammer approach to their sarcastic descriptions of characters acting in bizarre circumstances to lay out interminable ironic stories. Another younger author, Chad Harbach, used a style similar to Wolfe and wrote a much better novel, The Art of Fielding. Back to Blood is Tom Wolfe's best novel, a great joy to read.
    • 4/5
      Tom Wolfe takes a swipe at, among other things, ethnicity and class, pornography, reality TV, and the art world in his 2012 novel, "Back to Blood." Like his previous novels Bonfire of the Vanities (set in New York) and A Man in Full (set in Atlanta) in style and storytelling, Wolfe turns his keen powers of observation to south Florida. Set in Miami, a city full of immigrants where the melting pot is broken and ethnic divisions are firmly entrenched, Back to Blood satires a city where everybody hates everybody. Hector Camacho, a muscled Cuban cop, rescues a would-be Cuban defector just yards from freedom and enrages his family and fellow Cubans. Hector's girlfriend, Magdelena, dumps him to be with her boss-- a psychiatrist who treats incredibly wealthy porn addicts and who uses his patients as social stepladders to open doors. Some of those billionaire addicts spend tens of millions of dollars in a matter of minutes at Art Basel, a swanky exclusive art show, just to out-do their rival billionaires. The black police chief defends a Cuban cop's racist language and actions, something that angers the black community and causes the Cuban mayor to call for the Cuban officer's dismissal. A Haitian professor only wants to be considered French, since Haitians are the lowest rung on Miami's social ladder, and is incensed when his dark-skinned son speaks Creole and adopts a gang-banger appearance. The professor's nearly-white daughter knows better than to bring up her ethnicity, since it changes other people's view of her. A young newspaper reporter uncovers rumors that the Russian businessman who donated $70 million worth of art to the new Miami art museum actually donated faked reproductions. Yet the paper's editor, a WASP Yale graduate like the reporter, worries about how the story will make him, the paper, and the city, look like fools since the all colluded to rename the museum after the donor. Tom Wolfe merges the intricate story lines almost flawlessly, switching points of view and storylines as fast as speedboats racing for private islands. He has created an engaging novel that is just a bit too long but entirely worth your time. Reading Back to Blood is like visiting a favorite museum with old friends, where you can relish what you believe to be masterworks while your friends regale you with lurid tales of dark places you'll never go or see. Any good satire will test the comfort of the reader, and this novel certainly has moments where the ethnic and sexual content seems to go too far, even for adult readers. Yet that is classic Tom Wolfe, and this is one of the best he has offered in quite some time.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is the latest door stop from one of my favorite writers of all time, Tom Wolfe. What he did for (or to) Atlanta in A Man in Full, and New York in Bonfire of the Vanities, he does for (or to) Miami in Back to Blood. As usual, I found Wolfe’s descriptive writing to be vastly entertaining and his characters fascinating and spell binding.While I have been to Miami (actually Key Biscayne), and am familiar with the influx of Cubans and the melting pot nature of present day Miami culture, I was not aware of the extremes to which these characteristics have evolved. If Wolfe’s Miami is in any way representative, this novel was a real eye opener.Wolfe excels at writing about and describing conflict, and his best work involves scenes such as those in A Man in Full where the overextended real estate developer is dragged over the coals by his creditors. This novel contains numerous such instances, such as when the Latina driver of a $250,000 sports car goes to ridiculous extremes to snag a parking spot from a late middle-age, eco-car driving WASP and verbal Armageddon ensues; it’s fascinating.Wolfe skewers modern art and the preening aficionados of even the most ridiculous examples thereof; he eviscerates the fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy; and he parodies the seemingly never ending racial politics involved in the stark multi-cultural melting pot that is Miami.While I enjoyed the novel immensely, I must confess to being ultimately worn out with what must be Wolfe’s latest affectation, the rampant use of inappropriate punctuation, most annoyingly, repeating colons to indicate a character’s thoughts. For example, ::::::::::::I wonder what’s for dinner.:::::::::::: As he scoured the cupboard, his mother entered the room. ::::::::::::Oh my God, what does she want now::::::::::::::::::: His mother stood with her hands on her hips. :::::::::::::::::::::I hope she doesn’t tell me to take out the trash:::::::::::::::::::: “Take out the trash,” his mother said. :::::::::::Drat!:::::::::::::: It honestly became a serious distraction. Other than that, I’m hard pressed to find fault with this novel, which kept me entertained from start to finish.
    • 5/5
      Old tricks still the best tricks?While I was reading Back to Blood, I happened to mention to a friend that it was the first I’d read from Wolfe since The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test decades prior. He was astounded that I’d never read Bonfire of the Vanities, but I was barely out of high school when it was published. And let’s face it; Mr. Wolfe hasn’t exactly been prolific in his fiction output in recent years. So, basically, I came to this novel with very fresh eyes and few expectations. And you know what? I really loved it. But I think much of what I loved about this book is what turned off many readers. Namely, the unusual use of language within the text—but we’ll get back to that later.Back to Blood primarily revolves around a first-generation Cuban-American cop named Nestor Camancho, who inadvertently gets embroiled in Miami’s volatile racial and ethnic politics. Early in the novel, the acrobatic arrest of an endangered Cuban asylum-seeker makes him a front-page hero for white Miami and a pariah in his own Cuban community. Wolfe documents the racial tensions of the city at large, as well as the tensions between the black and Cuban officers on the police force, and the struggle of this overwhelmingly immigrant city between culture and assimilation. Camancho becomes a pawn in a much larger game, all while trying to navigate the perils and pressures of his own familial, community, and romantic relationships. One of the reasons I was so interested in reading this novel is that I have been considering relocating to Miami. (I know, I know, my friends are threatening to stage an intervention.) Well, Back to Blood did not encourage me. It’s a scathing satirical look at the city. With the exception of Nestor, the vast majority of the characters are fairly reprehensible—but it was funny. A perfect example of this is the character of Dr. Norman Lewis, a self-aggrandizing psychiatrist of dubious ethics and talent. The man is a jack-ass. He’s a horrible human being. But Wolfe’s merciless skewering did have me chuckling. Likewise, a scene set in the midst of filming a reality television show. Wolfe is highlighting the absurdity and vulgarity not only of this one American city, but of our broader culture. It’s not a pretty picture.I was less interested and invested in the novel’s characters and the story being told than I was in the social observations and, as noted above, the language being used. I have heard from others that Wolfe is using some of his same old tricks, but these are new tricks to me, and I found the writing to be fresh, creative, and somewhat exhilarating. While some of the prose was conventional (but always interesting), other sections were almost… musical. Or, perhaps, like something you might hear at a poetry slam. (Or an onomatopoetry slam, with all the smacks, buzzes, and bangs!) An example:“…He reached into the bag from Ricky’s—pastelitos!—and took out a moon of beef pastelito wrapped in wax paper… A little bit of Heaven!... tasted exactly the way he hoped it would… Pastelitos! A little flake of the baked filo dough fell… little flakes of it fell if you picked up a pastelito… little flakes fell on his clothes… upon the Camaro’s reupholstered seats… Far from annoying him, the gentle doughfall in the stillness of 7:30a.m. on a Saturday morning was a little bit of Heaven, too… made Nestor think of home, childhood delights, sunny Hialeah, a cozy casita… soft, fluffy clouds of love and affection… and protection. Gently, gently the flakes were wafted about by the white-noise zephyrs that blew out from the air conditioner vents… Nestor could feel the terrible tension draining out draining out draining out, and he drank some more coffee… ineffable sweetness—and how warm the cup and the plastic top had kept it!... and he ate some more moons of pastelito, and the flakes fell ever so gently and tumbled about in the zephyrs, and he found himself… lifting the little lever on the side of the seat and letting his own weight take it back to a twenty-degree incline…”Let me stress that the entire 720-page novel is not written in that manner. And, of course, I can see that this is not for everybody. But somehow the rhythms of the language really worked for me. And for a novel of that length, I have to say that the pages flew past. Mr. Wolfe may be an old dog using his same old bag of tricks, but there will always be young pups for whom they are new. I have already purchased a copy of Bonfire of the Vanities. I’ve got catching up to do.
    • 4/5
      Welcome to Florida: crazy population, too many to count. Tom Wolfe puts his spin on crazy Florida life with a very entertaining tale spinning around a Hialeah police officer. While not as frantic as Hiaasen or Dorsey, it is enjoyable, and don’t let the page count worry you because the time flies by.Free review copy.