Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar & Grill
I'm Kim Alexander and this is Fiction Nation. The book is Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar & Grill by N.M. Kelby.
It must be the heat. And maybe something in the water. How else can you explain the fact that the South Florida crime novel has its own shelf at the bookstore — practically its own section? Most of the authors I am talking about — Dave Barry, and Carl Hiaasen, to name a very few — use a little magical realism and lean heavily on extraordinary and bizarre villains. You'd think Miami was full of goats that fall from the sky and guys with weed whackers attached to their arms. Floridians are pioneers of a sort — instead of fording rivers with our covered wagons we fight off giant bugs and pray the power stays on, because if that A/C goes out there's no telling what we might do. Yeah, it's the heat. Florida crime writers also write a lot about the landscape. It's both relentless and fragile.
You can't reason with hurricane season, like Jimmy Buffet famously said. But you can easily bulldoze the mangrove swamp at midnight and start building condos the very next morning.
Saving a little sliver of swamp is just one of the many plot lines wandering through NM Kelby's Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill. The plot is way too convoluted to try and explain, or even sum up, and it's almost beside the point anyway. Let her characters, like bluesman Buddhist Jimmy Ray talk to you, and let the event wash over you like the warm tide. Her writing — aside from simply being an excellent storyteller — is so interesting, like when retired B-movie actress Danni tries to get a vulture out of her trailer — I did say 'vulture' — well, that was both surreal and pretty hysterical, and then as brave, blind Sophie gets lost on the beach only a few steps from her home, I admit to choking up a little bit. These are both the sorts of people one meets only in a novel, and every time we leave the house.
NM has a pretty action packed website — www.nmkelby.com — and her own BBQ sauce which was created just so the Bar Girl's Bar & Grill would have a sauce to call its own. My bottle is in my kitchen waiting for a test drive — I'll keep you posted.
Hear my interview with N.M. Kelby on Fiction Nation, on Take Five, XM 155 on Friday June 27th at 11:30pm, on Saturday June 28h at 6pm and Sunday June 29th at 10:00am and 8:00pm, and on Monday June 30h at 12:00 midnight and 3:00am. You can also hear Fiction Nation on Sonic Theater, XM 163 on Thursday July 3rd at 3:00 pm. All times EDT.
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