Les Standiford

The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad—one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores.
In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing...

“For such a sun-stoked place, Miami sure is shady . . . this batch of dirty deep South Florida fiction might just send you packing . . . your own heat.” —SunPost
 
Don’t let the fabulous weather, the beach bodies, and the high-end boutiques fool you. There is a darkness to Miami that can hit just as hard as a hurricane. If by day, the streets are lined with tourists,...

When Henry Flagler arrived at the island of Palm Beach in April 1893 it was a dense tangle of Palmetto brush and mangroves. Within a year he had built the Royal Poinciana Hotel, and two years later what was to become the legendary Breakers. Now Palm Beach has become synonymous with exclusivity, a fabled landscape intertwined with the colorful lives of its famous protagonists. Standiford brings alive a fabled place and the characters-- the rich, famous...