Laurence Shames books in order

Arthur Hightower made a name for himself and a vast fortune in the oil business. But when the volatile tycoon decides to disinherit his spoiled children and cheating wife, he makes the biggest mistake of his life-- and the last. After declaring his intentions, Hightower turns up on Thanksgiving Day ...clubbed to death and stuffed in a meat locker, clutching a frozen asset–his wife’s precious pearl necklace. Now Julia Hightower stands charged with the cold-as-ice crime of murdering for millions. While the sensational trial has New York in a frenzy, a curious cast of characters face off in and out of the courtroom.

Devin McGee, a small-time lawyer about to hit the big-time defending Julia Hightower-- if her intimate encounter with the prosecutor doesn’t catch up with her ...Trent Ballard, the quirky assistant D.A., who owns a huge pet rabbit and thinks his tryst with Devin will help him get a conviction ...Patrick Roswell, a wannabe reporter sitting on a scoop that could turn the trial upside-down, unless a scalpel-wielding clown decides to kill the story-- and Patrick ...Sissy Hightower, Julia's sex-crazed, air-headed daughter-in-law, who has a suitcase full of secrets ...Robert S. Rutledge, a powerful Wall Street warrior with a lot riding on the Hightower verdict-- and a lot to learn about messing with the wrong people ...and Cordelia, the mystery woman that everyone seems to know.

NB: Co-authored with William Bernhardt, Leslie Glass, Gini Hartzmark, John Katzenbach, John Lescroart, Bonnie MacDougal, Phillip Margolin, Brad Meltzer, Michael Palmer, and Lisa Scottoline.

All author royalties will be donated to The Nature Conservancy.

Three love stories. Two worlds. Six characters trying bravely, if not always wisely, to make their romantic destinies come out right—if not in this lifetime, well, maybe in the next.

Set partly in Santa Barbara, CA and its nearby wine country, and partly in a mysterious yet strangely believable version of the Afterlife, this big-hearted and redemptive novel employs a light touch in treating serious themes of family damage, second chances, and forgiveness.

Darcy Barnett—a gifted chef on the brink of thirty, with issues when it comes to trusting men—meets Paul DeFiore, a 34-year old winemaker with family burdens of his own. They are so right for each other that it terrifies them both. Hugh Barnett—Darcy’s father, a charming philanderer whose wandering ways created Darcy’s mistrust in the first place—is determined to help them get together. Inconveniently, he’s no longer among the living; no matter, he has two compelling reasons to find a way. He needs to be reconciled with his daughter before he can rest easy, and he’s hoping, in the Afterlife, for a rapprochement with Sheila, the wife he cheated on and failed to appreciate, and who divorced him back on Earth. 

Along the way, he also meets Manny Klein, whose tragedy was meeting the love of his life too soon, and who for half a century has been hoping to see his soul-mate Emma again—somehow, somewhere, anywhere.

"People go to Key West for lots of different reasons. Joey Goldman went there to become a gangster..."

So begins this classic Key West caper, the hilarious and touching book that launched a much-loved series and introduced the world to Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua Don Giovanni, two of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction.

Joey, the illegitimate son of a major NY mafioso, decides to break away from a decidedly unpromising future in the old neighborhood of Queens. But will the old neighborhood and the Family let him go in peace? Not if knucklehead half-brother Gino has anything to say about it. 

As Joey is finally establishing his new life in sunny Florida, Gino involves him in a disastrous scam featuring a boatload of stolen emeralds and several squads of very nasty thugs. Finding within himself resources of smarts and courage he never knew he had, Joey beats long odds and muddles through to a brilliant solution to the problems dumped on him by Gino.

"In this business, nothing is as good as dead..."

The business in question is the high-end art world, and everyone in this darkly comedic mystery wants a piece of it.

When painter Augie Silver is lost at sea in a sailing accident, his many friends among Key West's artists, writers, and hangers-on mourn--until, that is, they realize that Augie's death has sent the prices for his pictures skyrocketing. What at first seemed a tragedy turns out to be a windfall--until, that is, Augie, rescued at sea, limps back to town alive. Not everyone is thrilled by the artist's resurrection. Someone, in fact, is upset enough to start trying to bump off Augie for real.

It's not easy being the Godfather. All those secrets and all that guilt add up to a terrible burden--a weight that's killing Vincente Delgatto. When the old man travels to Key West for a visit with his illegitimate son--Joey Goldman, the unlikely hero of FLORIDA STRAITS--Joey floats the idea of a conscience-easing memoir, to be written in collaboration with a local reporter.

It's a well-intentioned but extremely dangerous idea, since no one--not the Mafia, not the FBI, not the legitimate heir to the Delgatto family business--wants to see that memoir published. Will Vincente live long enough to get a lifetime's worth of secrets off his chest? Will writer Arty Magnus ever actually finish a book? For that matter, will Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua Don Giovanni ever enjoy a completely successful walk, and are there punishments enough on earth for Gino, the ingrate son who'd rat out his own father?

"As enjoyable as a day at the beach."

When Murray Zemelman, a.k.a. The Bra King, pops another Prozac and heads to the Keys, he has nothing much in mind beyond a quixotic hope of winning back his first wife, Franny, whom he dumped years before. But when he forms an unlikely friendship with Tommy Tarpon, the last remaining member of an obscure Indian tribe, another plan also starts shaping up in his fevered brain. Why not open up Key West's first casino?

Why not? Well, how about because the Mafia, in league with some of the nastiest politicians you will ever meet, is determined to kill anyone who tries? Somehow, Murray, Tommy, and Franny didn't think of that until they were in way too deep. Laugh along as they improvise a manic and ever more desperate campaign to keep their casino dreams--and themselves--alive.

Mafia princess Angelina Amaro has only ever loved one man-and that lone affair was never consummated. Why not? Because her would-be lover, Sal Martucci, fled into the Witness Protection Program after ratting out Angelina's father.

When Sal is discovered working as a bartender in Key West, the wildly dysfunctional Amaro clan heads south-one member with love on her mind, the others with murder in their hearts.

Key West seduces people--then asks them to leave in the morning. Take Aaron Katz. He chucked his NY nine-to-five to restore the Mangrove Arms, a rotting wreck of a guest house. Suki Sperakis, aspiring journalist, sees opportunity in Florida, too, though in the meantime she's peddling ad space for a third-rate freebie paper. Then she stumbles upon a nefarious plot revolving around a handsome Russian and his string of T-shirt shops. Can't a guy manufacture plutonium in peace?

Now, with the Russian mafia on her trail, freewheeling Suki is running for her life--and leaving in her wake a mix of sunken Cadillacs, abandoned Cold War missile silos, and the occasional corpse. With only the mild-mannered Aaron, his slightly demented father Sam, and an old gangster named Bert the Shirt as allies, can she possibly survive the squeeze?

For friendly, easygoing furniture salesman Al Tuschman, frizzy hair is the least of his problems. Before he'd left New Jersey for a week's vacation in Key West, he hadn't an enemy in the world. But a series of puzzling assaults on his privacy, his sanity, and his life has turned his stay at the tasteful Paradise Hotel into a tropical hell. Maybe it's just the humidity. Maybe the Sambuca. Or maybe it's the nickname emblazoned on his license plate: Big Al.

For Big Al Marracotta, Mafia capo, a Florida getaway means outrunning a career in crime and rancid calamari. For Katy Sansone it's a bid for sunshine and self-respect--until a case of mistaken identity pits the confused woman against a bafflement of Als and more danger than any one of them had reason to pack for. Now, if Tuschman doesn't watch his back, somebody's going to be reporting the death of another salesman. . . .

Meet Pete Amsterdam, the world's most reluctant sleuth.

Naked in his hot tub, Pete is idly reviewing his morning tennis game when trouble arrives in the form of the inevitable blonde. This being Key West, the blonde is not quite what she seems, and it's useless to explain to her that he's not a real detective--that, in fact, he got his P.I. license strictly as a tax dodge, a way to pretend his new wine cellar is an "office." She's got troubles of her own--big troubles that are utterly foreign to the cozy little paradise Pete has crafted for himself.

Why, then, does the unwilling gumshoe allow himself to be squeezed ever tighter against Key West's humid underbelly--involved with the likes of local bully Lefty Ortega, his nympho daughter, and the sleazeball who controls the island's gambling boats? And why does he feel that his life is being taken over by the demands and traditions of the detective story?

Will Pete blunder his way through to solving the crime? Will he penetrate the leotard of the lissome yoga teacher who is his only ally? The answers will be found in these fast-moving and hilarious pages, where the hard-boiled flirts with the postmodern. Think of this novel as Raymond Chandler meets Woody Allen meets the Coen brothers, and as a romp that somehow breaks through to serious consideration of the themes of community and responsibility, and the notion that maybe all of us could be heroes--even if mostly in spite of ourselves.

Take three speedboats, a disgruntled ghostwriter, and a hit TV show starring a gorgeous but impossible diva and created by a driven genius who may be losing his marbles. Add a fearless and gleefully profane stuntwoman, an ancient Mafioso with a chihuahua, and a revenge-crazed blonde in gladiator sandals. Stir in a thug with a heart of gold and an inveterate slacker who yearns for glory. Whisk a loopy but tender romance into the mix, turn the whole crew loose in the liberating and seductive sunshine of the Florida Keys—and what do you have?

Wanted: NY apartment in exchange for a great Key West house with swimming pool. In February.

Who wouldn’t take a swap like that? Then again, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, as Meg and Peter Kaplan soon discover. Heading south for a supposed dream vacation, what they find instead is a panic attack waiting to happen. Coconuts crash through windows, bearing cryptic death threats. People fall from palm trees while spying on the pool. Neighbors whisper of Mob connections, leaving the Kaplans to wonder if they’ll get whacked by mistake in the Southernmost City or if their cozy West Side co-op has been transformed into a convenient Mafia morgue.

Enter an FBI agent going rogue, a very good girl determined to be very bad, and the irrepressible Bert the Shirt with his chihuahua, and the cast is complete for this riotous Florida romp.

Everyone's afraid of something, right? But if our fears sometimes make us look like chickens, they also present opportunities for us to behave like heroes. This is a little story about a fateful confrontation of a very feisty rooster vs. Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua. Which side will back down? Who will come away with the neighborhood crowing rights? Who's the chicken, after all?

Sometimes small dreams are the ones most worth fighting for…

Phoebe has a dream—a very modest dream. She wants to own a Sno-Cone truck at the beach in Key West. Nicky, her would-be boyfriend, also dreams small. All he wants is a decent gig as a guitar player in a bar.

Doesn’t seem like too much to ask of life, does it?

So why do things keep going so dreadfully wrong for Phoebe and Nicky? Is it just plain bad luck? Or is it the decidedly bad intentions of a sleazy local cheat, a Miami gangster desperate to stay in business, and a murderous Cuban smuggler looking for a fall guy?

Against these enemies, and with only a pair of mangrove-dwelling philosophers and an ancient Mafioso as allies, Phoebe and Nicky will need more than a major shift in fortune to keep their hopes, and themselves, alive. They’ll need a kind of smarts and courage they never knew they had.

Perfect romance. Perfect nightmare. Sometimes it’s a fine line.

Meet Key West native Renita Daughtry--22, wide-eyed, gorgeous, and very much in love with love. In other words, an irresistible target for professional impostor and pathological liar Richie Pestucci, who plans to charm her into utter helplessness.

But there’s just one problem. Renita’s seeming naivete masks a lot of savvy and a will of velvet-coated steel, and it isn’t long before Richie, now smitten with his intended victim, starts to wonder just who is gaming who. As his cynical poise dissolves and the lovers’ game of cat-and-mouse grows subtler and sexier, things start going dangerously and hilariously wrong. So wrong, in fact, that setting them right will require the combined efforts of a heroic twin brother, a fiercely loyal uncle who takes his pest control job very seriously, and a sharp-dressing retired mobster with a singing chihuahua.

“What is with you lately?” Lenny’s wife would like to know. “You’ve been acting like everything is one big joke.”

And it’s true—unemployed TV writer Lenny Sullivan has been having trouble seeing his life and times as anything more than fodder for edgy wisecracks. But when he bolts to Key West to refresh his lighter side, things suddenly turn serious. Well, sort of serious. A bullying businessman in league with a pair of bumbling mobsters is plotting to burn down his best friend’s struggling comedy club. The pill-popping star of his last best chance at a hit show is under a death threat from a very sore loser in a love triangle. And Lenny’s staunchest ally in the fight to keep the club, the star, and the laughs alive happens to be a 90-something named Bert the Shirt. Fortunately, Bert has a soft spot for comedians and is the savviest if not the most grammatical guy in town…

Key West has a new hero…

He weighs four pounds and stands eight inches off the ground. His name is Nacho and he’s the bravest, shrewdest, funniest Chihuahua you will ever meet. He’ll do anything to help his master, the retired Mafioso Bert the Shirt, and his friends—especially the beautiful Rita, with whom Nacho is smitten from the very first time she reaches down to scratch his ears.

Wise-cracking Rita, straight out of Jersey, is new in town and needs a job. A gig at Wreckers Rum seems promising, but there’s something, well, a little off about the place. It doesn’t sell much booze, yet maintains a classy tasting room on prime Key West waterfront. Where’s the money coming from? Who’s the oddly chivalrous mobster behind the operation? What’s up with the crazy scientist in flip-flops toiling away in his triple-locked lab behind the distillery? And how might Rita get closer to the irresistible but aloof young chief distiller whose only passion seems to be for making rum? 

Determined to find both answers and true love, undaunted Rita lands herself in some very hot water—hot rum, actually—and it will take a special kind of devoted and unleashed hero to rescue her.

FACT: In September 1964, the Beatles, their private flight diverted by Hurricane Dora, made an unplanned visit to Key West.

FICTION: Poolside at their motel, the Fab Four fell into conversation with a snappy-dressing local named Bert the Shirt, who listened as the band worked out a harmony to the most beautiful song he’d ever heard--and wouldn’t hear again for over half a century.

FACT: That night, the Beatles played an unannounced free concert in the motel bar. Everyone was welcome. Local musicians showed up with guitars and keyboards, and had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of jamming with the Beatles till 4 am. This legendary event has forever after been known to Key West locals as THE PARADISE GIG.

FICTION: Next day, hung over and exhausted, the Beatles left for the airport, having somehow lost a stained and battered notebook that held a priceless stash of unrecorded songs.

NOW CUT TO THE PRESENT: A beautiful woman is doing a yoga headstand on a Key West beach when she’s abducted by a pair of thugs. An aspiring young singer is offered a recording deal that seems a bit too good to be true. Bad things happen to a couple of one-hit wonders…And old Bert hears a new song that is hauntingly familiar, but that he can’t quite place.

So what, exactly, is Key West Normal?

Well, Key West Normal is when two friends in need of a place to live drag away an abandoned hot dog truck in the middle of the night…

But an insomniac New Yorker has got himself trapped inside it while searching for his neurotic cat…

And the truck is the secret hub of a global smuggling operation and holds a stash worth millions…

But the tough guy sent to recover the fortune is way more interested in being reunited with his one true love.

Most of all, though, Key West Normal is when none of the above seems at all improbable. It’s just the way things are. Or at least how they are in the funky, funny, palm-shaded, all-accepting town at the end of the road.

And when it falls to the unlikeliest pair of heroes—a homeless man named Pineapple and an ancient Mafiosoknown as Bert the Shirt—to sort through all the many twists and turns and save the day, well, that’s Key West Normal to the max.

Ever notice that things get sticky when family comes to town?

Pete Amsterdam, world’s most reluctant private eye, is living the bachelor dream in Key West, Florida. Then his mother, the undaunted Gertie, shows up with her new hip, her large suitcase, and her gift for cutting remarks.

Penelope Calabro, world’s most fetching pickleball instructor, has been managing to outrun her troubled, secret past. Until her Uncle Gianni appears one humid day with a mysterious hit-man following much too close for comfort.

Before long, Gertie has guilt-tripped Pete into taking on Gianni’s very complicated problems, since Gianni is her last best hope for a scintillating late-life romance. But Pete has fallen for the irresistible Penelope…and run headfirst into a perplexing question: Who’s the hit-man really after—the uncle or the niece?

With a midnight deadline to solve the puzzle looming, Pete finds himself with only the most improbable of allies—an ancient Mafioso named Bert the Shirt and his neurotic chihuahua, Nacho, along with a couple of ragged locals who live in an old food truck in the mangroves. Can this ill-assorted team beat the odds and save a couple of lives?

“Unlike most books on business…this baby sings.”

That was the judgment of The New York Daily News in regard to this remarkable volume that entertains on every page while providing rare insights into the methods and secret workings of the Harvard Business School. Focused on HBS’s most successful class—the fabled ‘49ers, “the Class the dollars fell on”—the book combines boardroom drama with astute social commentary. 

More than just a book about business, The Big Time tells the story of the American spirit at the height of a golden age. Rich in compelling anecdotes and unforgettable characters, this fascinating group portrait—named one of Business Week’s 10 Best upon its initial release in 1986--remains a seminal study of American privilege and power, ingenuity and hubris, and an essential text for understanding our own times.

In the lyrical yet tough-minded tradition of Thoreau, this prescient and impassioned volume, written by a former Ethics columnist for Esquire magazine, examines the myths and follies of a culture that celebrates greed and defines success solely in terms of wealth.

As timely today as it was upon its original release in 1989, the book examines the corrosive effects of money-worship on the social fabric and warns of the consequences of pursuing a lifestyle rather than building a life. 

Written in a lively, journalistic style, and filled with telling observations, the volume takes an unsparing look at the world as it is---and also points the way toward the more humane and fulfilling world that is in our power to create.

Some people are born to lead and destined to teach by the example of living life to the fullest, and facing death with uncommon honesty and courage. Peter Barton was that kind of person.

Driven by the ideals that sparked a generation, he became an overachieving Everyman, a risk-taker who showed others what was possible. Then, in the prime of his life—hugely successful, happily married, and the father of three children—Peter faced the greatest of all challenges. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey that was not only frightening and appalling but also full of wonder and discovery.

With unflinching candor and even surprising humor, Not Fade Away finds meaning and solace in Peter's confrontation with mortality. Celebrating life as it dares to stare down death, Peter's story addresses universal hopes and fears, and redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain, of breaking through to personal faith, and of achieving peace after bold and sincere questioning.

NB: Co-authored with Peter Barton.

A poignant, funny, and, above all, honest look at obesity from the inside out. Is it the goal of life to be thin? Or to be happy? In this inspiring story, those two elusive goals become one, as a fat man learns acceptance, loses the guilt, and gains the wisdom to manage his weight.

You can hardly pick up a magazine or turn on the TV today without encountering a torrent of talk on weight. But all too rarely do we hear from overweight people themselves—especially men—about how life feels inside the body of a fat person. Mike Berman shares that story in this hopeful and uplifting memoir.

A self-proclaimed "fat man" who is also a happy man—successful in his career, marriage, and friendships—Berman has earned his insight and peace of mind through decades of personal struggle. In Living Large, this well-known political activist and Washington lobbyist never shies away from the pain and daunting challenges of being seriously overweight. But Berman has an important message that he wants to be heard: Fatness is not a moral failing, but a disease; and once it is accepted as such, it can be successfully managed.