Key West has new private eyes on its streets, and Tom Corcoran returns with his eighth novel, a spin-off from his popular Alex Rutledge mystery series. Both longtime fans and newcomers to Corcoran are sure to enjoy Crime Almost Pays, starring an offbeat pair of private eyes. Dubbie Tanner, a man of substance who used to live in his car, and Wiley Fecko, who once drank and slept in the weeds, are now Southernmost Aristocratic Investigations. While they call themselves The Aristocrats, certain members of law enforcement have been heard calling them the Bumsnoops. Introduced in The Quick Adiòs (Times Six), the most recent Alex Rutledge novel by Corcoran, the rookie investigators have a case in their tropical in-box, and they are over their heads from the start. Rutledge plays no part here, but his friend Key West Detective Beth Watkins must deal with murders, street fights, an attempted kidnapping and a flaky federal agent. The Aristocrats, who now live in and work out of a home bought by Tanner, are hired for a simple task, but the pay is far too generous and the job goes haywire. By helping a stranger, Tanner draws Fecko and their lovely friend Kim Salazar, a Key West cab driver, into a crossfire of intrigue, dirty tricks, scams and potential double-cross. It gets worse. It gets ugly. Cuban tourism, island crazies, typical greed, wealthy fathers, good cops, fearful cops and, okay, there s a car chase... As in previous Tom Corcoran novels, Key West, with its characters, history, natural beauty and isolation, plays a fundamental role in the story. Captures the soul of Key West, all its eccentricities and secrets… --South Florida Sun Sentinel …never a word out of place, never a description that is not perfect, never a story that does not absorb you… --Creative Loafing, Tampa Tom Corcoran reconnects my heart and brain to the Key West I knew... --Jimmy Buffett Tom Corcoran is the author of the Alex Rutledge Series, mystery novels set in Key West. A photographer and former journalist, he also created Key West in Black and White, a volume of retrospective Key West images, Triple in Paradise, a group of three short stories, and Key West Point of View, a collection of over 400 recent color photographs of the island in DVD format. Acoustic guitar and steel pan background music was created especially for the 40-minute DVD by musicians John Frinzi and John Patti. A resident of the Keys for fifteen of his forty years in Florida, Corcoran was an early collaborator with Jimmy Buffett, providing photos for seven album and CD packages and lyrics for the songs Fins and Cuban Crime of Passion. Corcoran photographs and articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Southern Boating, Cruising World, Look, Diversion, Esquire, Car and Driver, and Outside. In addition to continuing the Alex Rutledge Series, Corcoran has contributed song lyrics for recent John Frinzi CD releases. Tom splits his time between Central Florida and the Florida Keys.