Review: American Tropic by Thomas Sanchez

by:  Thomas Sanchez
published by:  Knopf
publish date:  January 15, 2013

The exotic island city of Key West is terrorized by horrific murders committed by a mysterious voodoo assassin.

For some reason when I started this book I had it in my head that this book was about bio-terrorism, but it wasn't about that.  No clue where that came from, but what American Tropic really is about is rage fueled murder on the little island of Key West.

The novel centers a group of characters that are all interrelated.  Noah Sax runs a pirate radio show out of his boat while he drifts off the coast.  He rails against the greed and selfishness of corporations and the damage they're doing to our planet.  His Key West callers talk of impending doom and potential damage that new high rise condominiums will do to their island.  Luz Zamora is a detective that has lived on Key West all her life and when bodies start turning up, killed and mutilated in horrific ways she gets the case.

The murders are blamed on Bizango a mythical voodoo avenger because the killer wears an elaborate disguise.  However, when 2 of the 3 investors of the condominiums are among the murder victims, a common thread starts to develop.  It seems that Bizango doesn't want the high rises to be built.

This was one of those books that is a little bit hard for me.  It was good.  I liked the story.  However, at times I felt the writing was a little too sparse maybe is the word?  Ordinarily that wouldn't bother me because usually I get annoyed with overly wordy writers.  I just felt like there were some details missing here and there.

American Tropic did do something that not too many books have.  The ending was such a shock and I was so thrown by it that it put me in funk for a few days.  I couldn't start any other books because I was in such a hangover from this book.  I even hashed out the ending with my husband, which is something I never do because he is such a non-reader, wondering why this character would do such a thing.  By that standard, American Tropic was awesome!