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My previous true crime books for Kensington's Pinnacle True Crime imprint detailed the misdeeds of blue collar psychopaths and working class villains. The economy of America changed, and times were tough. True crime readers wanted to read about rich people doing very bad things. "Don't write another book with blue collar protagonists," advised my editor at Kensington. "Your assignment is to find rich people, good looking rich people. Lots of sex, drugs and if possible, a wood chipper."
I didn't find the wood chipper, but thanks to Suzy Spencer, I found the story of Jimmy Joste and Rhonda Glover -- a true Texas power couple of wealth, avarice, eroticism and drug fueled madness. Finding the story isn't the same as writing the book. Throwing myself into this project challenged me more than any book I've ever written until the day Michaela Hamilton, chief executive editor of Kensington Publishing Group said to me, "You're drowning in this manuscript, aren't you?"
If you ever wanted to be a true crime writer. this the show that tells you how it's done and how you can keep from drowning in your manuiscript.
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“Whatever you thought you believed about this infamous case, get ready to change your mind or be more convinced than ever. … Fascinating.”—New York Times bestselling author Steve Jackson
Murder, mayhem, militias, marijuana, mafia and The Mons. A criminal history of Tampa focusing on its most infamous people and events of the past century. Historians seem to love painting a picture of Tampa's past as one of immigrants happily working side-by-side to create a utopian society that became the cigar capital of the world and later a destination hailed as one of "the nation's next best cities." While this is true to some extent, Tampa also has a dark side. Tampa's history can be divided into three dark eras - the early years of danger, where the greatest fear was the nightmarish individuals who were allowed to roam the nights in a city without a proper law enforcement organization in place; the mid-1900s when one of the most power criminal syndicates in the nation made its home in Tampa and when a another nation's revolutionary war affected the city's residents; and the late 1900s to early 2000s when Tampa became a sexual playground. Each flows effortlessly into the next, one always passing the torch to the next. Some of the names associated with these eras are well known in all corners of Tampa -Santo Trafficante, Fidel Castro and Joe Redner. While others are either less known or completely unknown - Charlie Wall, Tampa's first godfather; Robert Anderson, one of the nation's first serial killers; and Bobby Rodriguez, owner of Tampa's first GoGo bar. Whether known or unknown, good or bad, each of the individuals explored in this book had an impact on Tampa's history. These are their stories.
