- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (Mar 5 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312291272
- ISBN-13: 978-0312291273
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.3 x 2.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 599 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #622,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
In three previous novels, Tom Corcoran established himself as a shrewd observer of Key West’s eccentricities and landscape. In Octopus Alibi, he delivers Alex Rutledge to labyrinths of the past, agendas of power, and greed that jumps generations.
The suspected murder of a long-missing woman, the death of an elderly mentor, and the suicide of Key West’s popular mayor are revealed a single April day. Rutledge, a freelance photographer with part-time forensic ties to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and the KWPD, must accompany fishing guide and friend Sam Wheeler to identify a body in Broward County. Hours later, back on the island, a Key West detective coerces Alex into documenting Mayor Gomez’s demise. Rutledge also learns he must administrate the estate of Naomi Douglas, the woman who encouraged his creative photography.
Rutledge soon suspects that nothing is as it appears. The police choose not to see crimes. Only Rutledge senses foul play on the island, a linking of deaths, and the threat of more peril.
Home-front troubles compound the dilemma. Teresa Barga, Alex’s new housemate, is absorbed by the arrival in town of Whitney Randolph, a college friend with cash, wild stories, bent morals, and more alibis than an octopus has suckers. Randolph, it appears, has already slithered into the unfolding suspense, linking himself to scam victims and murder victims.
Rutledge must ignore a relationship gone sour, then focus on wisps of clues to connect the past and present. Friends act out of character, officials become duplicitous, and threats of violence take Alex to the most dangerous confrontation of his life.
Filled with edgy characters and insights to island existence, the tight plot of Octopus Alibi promises Tom Corcoran’s most unforgettable tale of the hot, crazy tropics.
The suspected murder of a long-missing woman, the death of an elderly mentor, and the suicide of Key West’s popular mayor are revealed a single April day. Rutledge, a freelance photographer with part-time forensic ties to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and the KWPD, must accompany fishing guide and friend Sam Wheeler to identify a body in Broward County. Hours later, back on the island, a Key West detective coerces Alex into documenting Mayor Gomez’s demise. Rutledge also learns he must administrate the estate of Naomi Douglas, the woman who encouraged his creative photography.
Rutledge soon suspects that nothing is as it appears. The police choose not to see crimes. Only Rutledge senses foul play on the island, a linking of deaths, and the threat of more peril.
Home-front troubles compound the dilemma. Teresa Barga, Alex’s new housemate, is absorbed by the arrival in town of Whitney Randolph, a college friend with cash, wild stories, bent morals, and more alibis than an octopus has suckers. Randolph, it appears, has already slithered into the unfolding suspense, linking himself to scam victims and murder victims.
Rutledge must ignore a relationship gone sour, then focus on wisps of clues to connect the past and present. Friends act out of character, officials become duplicitous, and threats of violence take Alex to the most dangerous confrontation of his life.
Filled with edgy characters and insights to island existence, the tight plot of Octopus Alibi promises Tom Corcoran’s most unforgettable tale of the hot, crazy tropics.
About the Author
Tom Corcoran is the author of The Mango Opera, Gumbo Limbo, and Bone Island Mambo. He has been a disc jockey, Navy officer, screenwriter, journalist, and magazine editor. His photographs have appeared on seven Jimmy Buffett album covers, and he cowrote the Buffett hits “Fins” and “Cuban Crime of Passion.” Corcoran lives in the Lower Keys.
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THE AIR INSIDE THE taxi could have fertilized a Glades County cane field. Read the first page
Front Cover | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE AIR INSIDE THE taxi could have fertilized a Glades County cane field. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent follow to his other great Rutledge Novels,
By A Customer
This review is from: Octopus Alibi: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Hardcover)
I was an inhabitant of the islands in the early 80's before the place got popular and crowded. Corcoran's description of the characters and the long term residents of the keys are dead on. If you know the keys and key west well, you will really enjoy this book and the other Rutledge novels. Fans of the Travis McGee series and Carl Hiassen's books would really enjoy this story as well as the others Corcoran mysteries. Keep them coming Tom!
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Key West Mystery,
By
This review is from: Octopus Alibi: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Hardcover)
Of all the major "Keys" writers, Corcoran seems least frequent in publication, and this pays off in well written novels, or at least fast moving novels. He really is fun to read. Additionally, if you are "into" Key West, he's your writer. While there are actually two trips up and down to Miami, and a couple of "off island" forays, this book is centered in and plays on the ambience of that "last place in America." Alex Rutledge, Corcoran's photographer hero, tools up and down Simonton on his Cannondale or strolls the sidewalks of Duval, avoiding the overflow from Sloppy Joe's, dodging into Captain Tony's around the corner for an early beer. Certainly the Key West life style. There are many other little treasures: remembered sidewalk restaurants, cascades of bouganvillia on corners, the ocean mist, happy hour at Hog's Breath, regularly painted empty buildings. These are the observations of someone who knows the streets over time.Dirty deeds in this novel, surprise, are linked to real estate development and illegal immigration. The two plots work, but are not systematically linked to each other. These are mingled with the unraveling of a relationship between Rutledge and his "roomie" Teresa, that not unfrequent disaster that comes about when two decide to live as one and abandon the freedom of separate apartments. As the novel drew to a close, I had the feeling that there were three distinct stories, all joined at Alex Rutledge. Still, both mystery plots are exciting, and enough to keep anyone reading the novel awake an extra hour. The romance ends, as is common in "Keys" novels with a promise of future solace. For those who remember the days of clearing the pier of ships for sunset, or "tank" island (before the "condofying" of the island perimeter) wise contemporaries who bought Conch cottages for a song seem just a little long in the tooth. Such folk, also, have to be in their mid to late fifties and for we less lucky mortals self-knowledge forms plausability questions. One bit of K.W. zaniness, which someone eventually will seriously propose is a developer's Malory Square Dome with recorded projected sunsets to allow tourists to view the ten best in history. No mention of a guaranteed green flash, however.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Rutledge novel yet,
By Gary D Goff (N Fort Myers, FL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Octopus Alibi: An Alex Rutledge Mystery (Hardcover)
I have read all of the Alex Rutledge novels by Corcoran and this one beats them all. I felt as if I were on the streets of Key West. The dialogue is gutsy and dead on, characters to love and hate. Tom Corcoran spins a murder mystery with the best of them.
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