Coming in 2028: The wreck of the Peter Carey
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One!” Even standing down on the street, I jumped when the cheers erupted up on the Roof Garden restaurant, some fifteen floors up at the Columbus Hotel. I said to the street cop next to me, “Well, that’s that.” Prohibition was over. The Roof Garden’s till would overflow tonight.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Florida didn’t just draw swells and high rollers. Right behind were predatory land agents, shady gamblers, rum runners and moonshiners, pimps, bank robbers, and, of course, murderers. When the party ended, some of the bad guys didn’t go away. They just got meaner. To fight them, you needed an on-the-ball sleuth who could use his quick thinking, his contacts, and what he knew about his home state, from one end to the other. That’s Nate Moran.