Strange Files

Alexander Strange wants to get to Florida in the worst way. So, he arrives in a coffin. Chilling in its own right but made more so by the prediction of a soothsayer in New Orleans that he soon will actually face death. Why Florida? He's a columnist for an online news service that publishes The Strange Files, his weird news report. Where better to commit journalism than Florida when weirdness is your beat? But, before he can begin writing, he must confront the challenge of helping an old college friend who is being blackmailed. Which leads him on a bizarre journey through the Gunshine State to a series of bizarre and haunted locales while trying to unravel the mystery of not only who is threatening his friend-and why-but also testing the boundaries of friendship and trust. Can you be too cynical? He has to find out.

Weird news columnist Alexander Strange's day began when someone poisoned his fried okra. Bad enough, but, worse, it was meant for his dog, Fred. Now he's being framed for the hanging death of a colleague. Who's behind this and why is he in their sights? When the going gets weird, Strange gets going. He starts by corralling some allies-a retired urinal mat salesman turned private eye and a gorgeous public defender who wants him to abandon his "catch and release" love life. She also wants him to get rid of his shippmate, Mona, the mannequin. This unlikely crew must get to the bottom of who is behind the mayhem or they, too, may find themselves at the end of a rope. Along the way, they journey to the hottest new tourist attraction in Florida, a religious theme park where dinosaurs are vegetarians, and yacht with a Jell-O filled swimming pool where the Boogie Barbies are scheduled to perform. And, they must dodge Stalin's Hangmen, Miami-based thugs for hire, who want Strange dead. And, what's with the chicken feathers?

Alexander Strange lives and works aboard a fishing trawler in Naples, Florida writing about news of the weird. His laid-back lifestyle is, disrupted, when a feisty author of conspiracy books insists he, investigate the death of her brother in Key West. Her name is Silver, and the cops think her brother's death was an accident, a scuba diving mishap caused by nitrogen narcosis. But, Silver doesn't buy it. She believes he was murdered, and the motivation behind his killing is far more noxious. When she tells Alexander her brother's last words to her were, "I found a mermaid," it's a story too good for a weird-news reporter to resist. But when, the bullets start flying and the sharks start circling, he realizes he's gotten into something literally over his head.