The Outsiders meet Sons of Anarchy in this gripping debut about a group of young men dragged into a drug-running operation. It’s 2009, the height of the Great Recession. Best friends Eddy, Cueball, and Jesse are fresh out of high school and wild at heart, but the economy is in the dumps. With jobs scarce along Florida’s Space Coast, they join a furniture-moving company run by Cueball’s father, a gruff ex-con biker who’s supposedly retired from the fast life. But when a mysterious old boss arrives in town, the payload is switched out, and the young men are coerced into shipping a new designer drug up the East Coast. What is advertised as a bastion of brotherhood and respect quickly spirals into back-alley deals, bloodshed, and an all-out turf war that will test the bounds of love and friendship. Enticed by larger paychecks, and fueled by burgeoning drug habits, the young friends find themselves trapped between rank opportunists, warring gangsters, meth zombies, crazed bikers, and a blowgun-wielding hitman, all vying for a shot at the big time. Soaring, ambitious, and deeply humane, Florida Palms is a gritty coming-of-age story with enormous heart and an unflinching vision of the violence and inequities facing forgotten communities. In a relentless race against desperate circumstances, the young friends must fully embrace the crime life or abandon their loyalties and risk ending up face down in the muck of the unforgiving swamps. New York Times  Editors' Choice A Best Crime Debut of 2025,  CrimeReads A Best Crime Fiction of 2025,  Library Journal A Best Mystery Debut of 2025,  Sun Sentinel "A musky, Florida-specific stew of sweat, blood, swamp gas and amphetamine addiction." - New York Times Book Review "Florida Palms reads like a magnificent mash-up of Elmore Leonard's wit and fellow crime writer Jim Thompson's grit, with just enough of the brilliant TV show "Breaking Bad" thrown in for good measure. A story of society's underbelly, the down and out trying to climb their way from the barrel they were born in. Pan writes wondrously about them in much the same way Steinbeck did about a different underbelly in classics like The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. HE'S THAT GOOD and his debut is not to be missed." -BookTrib "[This] intense drama has a Sons of Anarchy vibe but with a greater pathos. VERDICT: A must-read." - Library Journal (starred review) "Award-winning poet Joe Pan confidently delivers an uncompromising look at the criminal underworld of Central Florida. Florida Palms ushers in a new talent." - South Florida Sun-Sentinel  "A very gritty book, very true to Florida. I think Joe Pan's going to have a long career." - PBS, Between the Covers "While these characters seem to lead "small" lives, what they do has profound importance... Like The Sopranos, except instead of growing up at the center of this underworld, the characters strive for it from a place of near desperation." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Literature exists to challenge perspectives and enlighten blind spots in your own worldview. Pan's writing is full of critique. His cartel leaders drive their operations on the backs of the underprivileged. It's the same corporate exploitation that their workers were taught to hate, repackaged within the gang."  -Book Talk "Should be on the recommended lists for college level ENGL courses... Yes, at least as strong as Hinton's famous masterpiece The Outsiders ... Very Much Recommended." -BookAnon Joe Pan is the author of five poetry books and founder of Brooklyn Arts Press, one of the smallest independent houses ever honored with a National Book Award in Poetry, and publisher of Augury Books, honored with a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. His writing has appeared in the Boston Review , Hyperallergic , The New York Times , and Poets & Writers , and he’s been profiled by Publishers Weekly , The Rumpus , and The Wall Street Journal . He grew up along the Space Coast of Florida and now lives in Los Angeles. With his wife he cofounded BAH, an activist group that serves unhoused populations with sleeping bags and goods. Florida Palms is his debut novel.