Tropical freeze / James W. Hall.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The rugged Florida troubleshooter Thorn is back, in another high-tension tale of crime, love, and revenge. In an exotic blue-water locale where greed and criminality thrive, the mysterious disappearance of Thorn's boyhood friend Gaeton Richards, an FBI agent, enmeshes Thorn in a web of violence and intrigue that takes him from some of the seamiest bars in the Keys to some of the area's most sumptuous ocean villas. When he and Gaeton's beautiful sister become romantically involved, Thorn finds himself facing a jealous lunatic stalker, a rogue government agent mixed up in a murderous scam, and an unforgettable underworld peopled with petty crooks, hired guns, and dangerous losers.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Fisherman Thorn, first seen in the well-received Under Cover of Daylight , is getting his life together slowly, rebuilding his house in the Florida Keys and supporting himself by making fishing lures. When his boyhood friend, ex-FBI agent Gaeton Richards, disappears, his sister Darcy enlists Thorn in a campaign to nail Gaeton's boss, Benny Cousins, the not-quite-respectable head of a multinational rent-a-cop business who is determined to become a force in local ``conch'' affairs. But little is what it seems: Thorn and Darcy find themselves up against not only Benny but also violent, Florida cracker Ozzie, who lusts for Darcy and works for Papa John, local ``character'' and scam-master--and Benny's nasty racket may be protected by the Feds. Fast, cinematic scene-shifting, garish gallows humor (Tropical Freeze is the name on Papa John's ice cream truck--with a corpse in its freezer) and a violent, roller-coaster plot lead to a bleak, cynical ending. The main flavor is rue: the people in the Keys who came ``to the outer fringes of America to nourish their rugged individualism'' are losing it to modern civilization. 35,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; Mysterious Book Club selection. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

Though Hall's second Florida Keys thriller lacks the emotional power of his first (Under Cover of Daylight, 1987), it does recycle that novel's fetchingly laid-back hero for another involving, and more black-humored, yarn. Key Largo fly-fishing expert Thorn, however, isn't all that Hall recycles: also back are the derivative Florida-thriller pattern of quirky villains, a heroine with brains and brass to match her beauty, and a busy plot hinged on vengeance. Hall picks up Thorn's life four months after the close of his first adventure: still aching from the rape/murder of his stepmother and the bombing of his house, Thorn just wants to whittle fishing lures and build a new home. But big trouble comes calling when boyhood pal Gaeton Richards--FBI working undercover at a crooked security firm--turns up missing. Unknown to Thorn, Gaeton's the victim of two weird bad guys: dimwitted low-life Ozzie Hardison, who kidnaps Gaeton after mistaking him for a love-rival; and brighter but much meaner Benny Cousins, the owner of that security firm who, having made Gaeton as an undercover agent, shoots him dead when he finds Gaeton trussed up with linoleum in Ozzie's garage. When Gaeton's sister Darcy--Thorn's new love, a TV weathergirl--""senses"" that her brother's dead and swears revenge, Thorn pitches in, partly by hounding Benny by freezing Gaeton's recovered body in Ozzie's Tropical Freeze ice-cream truck and then propping it up like an iceman from hell within Benny's line of sight. Before justice is fully served, though, Thorn finds himself trussed up just like Gaeton in Ozzie's linoleum, with Benny's gun to his head, and Darcy finds herself the captive of Benny, revealed as a mass murderer. . . Stylishly written--Hall's published four volumes of poetry--but without the distinctive, brooding voice of his first, and with too many echoes of fellow Florida-thriller writers Leonard, Hiaasen, and Willeford. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.