Miles Arceneaux

MYSTERY
Miles Arceneaux
Hidden Sea: A Novel
Paperback, 978-0-9968-7974-3 (also available as an e-book), 216 pgs., $11.99
October 20, 2017

Nineteen is “sort of an itchy age, especially in a family whose motto was ‘Hold My Beer and Watch This.’” Juan Antonio Augustus “Augie” Sweetwater is nineteen, and has gone missing during a business trip to Mexico. Charlie, great uncle to Augie, quoting Gandhi, Thoreau, and John Lennon, philosophically feeling each of his sixty-eight years (“Lately he had begun to wonder if most of his dreams and adventures lay behind him, and if the whole of his life amounted to less than the sum of its parts”), heads to Veracruz to begin working his way up the coast. Raul, father of Augie, nephew of Charlie, crosses the border into Matamoros to begin working his way down the coast. Surely one of them will find Augie.

Old friends and business associates are behaving evasively, acting shady. Clues point in a gruesome direction: kidnapping, human trafficking, sea-slaves, cartels, corrupt public servants (“Plata o plomo, as they say. Silver or lead”), dissolute musicians, poachers, repo-women, plutocrats, and pirates, though those last two are synonyms.

Hidden Sea is the new novel by Miles Arceneaux (aka John T. Davis, James R. Dennis, and Brent Douglass), the fifth in his (their) Gulf Coast noir series of mysteries. Special mention is deserved by the design and cover teams; the layout and covers are consistently elegant in their bold simplicity—practically a brand. Inspired by Columbus, Cortés, and the New York Times, Arceneaux tosses us into the action in the first paragraph of Hidden Sea, and the mother of all plot twists lies in wait. Many seemingly disparate flavors gel, and we nod appreciatively as the pieces snap snugly into place. Multiple third-person narration offers a compelling view of those pieces.

Unlike previous installments in the series, Hidden Sea is a contemporary tale of the Sweetwater clan, and it seems darker, somehow sadder and heavier, than the previous volumes. Arceneaux seems unhappy with our times, and the darkness feels more immediate. Hidden Sea is lightened by local color and personalities, such as Ragnar the Younger, a Viking from Oklahoma, who is “crazy as a sprayed roach” with his giant runestone. Then there’s the “villainous one-eyed pirate terrorizing the Gulf . . . a pirate who serves a Santería deity and practices human sacrifice.”

The action moves up and down the Gulf of Mexico, from scrappy little Rockport, Texas, to the grand colonial cities and tiny fishing villages of coastal Mexico, to the pine and mango forests of Cuba. It helps to have a passing familiarity with Spanish, the ecology of the Gulf, ichthyology, and boat-ology. I learned about Cuba’s annual crab migration, bait balls of plankton that light up like the Fourth of July, and the mechanics of shrimp trawlers. These details are a hallmark of Arceneaux and lend verisimilitude to the adventure.

Arceneaux is frequently, cleverly funny. The dissolute musician has a yacht named The Miss Inclined; his breakthrough record was “a tear-jerking ballad about an aging rodeo cowboy who is run over by a semi-truck full of cows en route to a packing plant.” Poetic justice?

Hidden Sea is viscerally atmospheric, like Jimmy Buffett but a little mournful, with razor edges. Is it an elegy? An ode? A lamentation? Maybe, but Arceneaux still makes you want to don your shades and a funky hat, shove your toes in the sand, and while away the afternoon with a drink accessorized by a tiny umbrella.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.… (més)

Fiction
Miles Arceneaux
North Beach
Published by Miles Arceneaux (October 22, 2015)
Paperback, 270 pages, ISBN 978-0996879712 (ebook also available)
October 2015


“Okay . . . . What’s the worst that could happen?”
Johnny flashed me a quick smile and started the car. “The Sweetwater family motto.”


The triumvirate that is Miles Arceneaux — Brent Douglass, John T. Davis, and James R. Dennis — are back with North Beach, the fourth story about the Sweetwater clan in their series of crime novels that have been christened Gulf Coast noir. North Beach is a coming-of-age story of the next generation of Sweetwaters.

With North Beach, set in the summer of 1962, Arceneaux again proves masterful at evoking atmosphere and recreating a particular time and place. We are immersed in that year: the Space Race, Cuban Embargo, fallout shelters, the Beach Boys, paranoia, and virulent racism. North Beach proves the truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same, as some of its historical elements remain relevant today.

The story is told in the first person by Charlie Sweetwater, fifteen years old and consumed by fishing, boxing, football, cars, and girls. He and his older brother, Johnny, box at Stubby Hunsacker’s gym in Corpus Christi. The trouble starts when Miami mobsters (“the Miami Chamber of Commerce”) show up to poach Jesse Martel, a boxer from Cuba and Stubby’s best fighter. As intimidation escalates to violence, Charlie and Johnny morph into a noir version of the Hardy Boys to save Jesse from the death penalty and themselves from street punks, corrupt cops, Castro operatives, and the CIA.

Charlie experiences first love when he falls for Jesse’s niece, the beautiful Carmen (“she looked like a figure you’d mount on the prow of a ship”), a ballerina from Cuba and an older woman (aged seventeen). Some of the most satisfying moments in North Beach occur when Charlie’s fishermen-and-tavern-owning family culture collides with Carmen’s salad-and-dessert-forks-classical-music family culture. The younger Sweetwaters are game for broadening their horizons and venture forth to appreciate Tchaikovsky as well as Duke Ellington and conjunto. North Beach is a very multicultural book.

Arceneaux ably channels the teenage protagonists. The language is simple, suiting their ages, circumstances, and the era, while producing such humorous bons mots as these, describing a fish: “It was also absolutely the slimiest fish found in the Gulf Coast waters. Local anglers called them ‘tourist trout.’ We called ‘em ‘snot rockets.’” And this: “‘Inboards and Outboards?’ My uncle’s catchy names for the ladies’ and men’s rooms.” The sophisticated Carmen comments: “South Texas is not exactly the center of the ballet universe. People around here think a jeté is one of those long stone piers you build out into the water.”

North Beach is uneven. There is a lot going on here — multiple storylines crowded by a large cast of characters. The pacing is sometimes slow, but the climax is exciting and the ending satisfying. Ultimately, North Beach is about bullies in all their guises, personal and political, from the schoolyard to governments and everything in between.

Originally published by Lone Star Literary Life.… (més)

I've heard this book described as a coming of age book and it is a perfect description of this story . It is set in 1962 when the U. S. and Cuba were not on good terms. Charlie Sweetwater and his brother Johnny have one thing in their mind. They want to be boxing champions and spend a lot of time at the gym working with a boxing coach. The coach is a no nonsense kind of man who believes in hard work.

The boys are not concerned about the world troubles and they find one day that a bomb shelter is being built in their yard. I can only imagine what a teenager would of thought in those days seeing their dad furiously building a shelter that you could hardly move in. Charlie and Johnny had more pressing matters to attend to. They wanted to
champion Golden Glove winners.

Their coach introduces them to Jesse, a very promising up and coming boxer. It seems that others have their eyes on Jesse as well. He is offered to come train with someone else and his coach and him turn the offer down. This is where the action really starts to takeoff in the book. The coach is found murdered and Jesse is arrested for the crime. The brothers have no doubt that Jesse did not do it, but they are afraid to come forth with information thst could prove him innocent. Will they do the right thing and speak up?

The book introduces readers to very sinister characters that could impact many lives. Their power is felt throughout many cities and could have an impact on the government. I enjoyed the storyline about the Cuban Missle Crisis and how the author weaved it into the book with clarity and added tension to the book. the book is well written and has mystery, intrigue and a bit of history in the story. If you like coming of age books with mystery and the 1960s , this is a perfect book to pick up and enjoy.… (més)

Ransom Island by Miles Arceneaux
Stephen F. Austin State University Press
978-1622880850
$19.95, 278 pgs

Ransom Island is the third offering by Miles Arceneaux (Miles Arceneaux is actually three people: James R. Dennis, Brent Douglass and John T. Davis.) in a genre christened Gulf Coast Noir. This is the tale of the Sweetwater brothers of Ransom Island, Texas and what happens when the Galveston mob, one desperate woman, the Klan and Duke Ellington converge on the island during the hot, muggy summer of 1953. You heard me – it’s quite a combo, no? Rupert Sweetwater and his brothers, Flavius (their mother was taking a community college class in Western literature when he was born) and Noble, own and operate the Shady Palm Fish Camp where you can rent a cabin and stay awhile or a small boat for fishing, cool off with a cold beer in the bar and grill or take a spin across the floor in the dance hall.

The action begins when Jimmy Glick, an enforcer for the Ginestra crime family in Galveston, arrives in Aransas Pass on assignment, following the trail of Sally Rose, Primo Ginestra’s daughter, who has flown the coop. Sally Rose knows what her father is and wishes never to see him again. She’s dropped out of college and moved from place to place, working as a waitress and managing to stay one step ahead of Glick. Until now. “Sally Rose wasn’t at the end of her rope, exactly, but there wasn’t enough line left to tie a decent square knot.”

Sally Rose arrives on Ransom Island as a stow-away in the back of a refrigerated beer truck. She takes a job at Shady’s and keeps her secrets to herself. When Glick and friends find her they decide that Ransom Island looks like just the place to open a new franchise of vice and proceed to make the Sweetwater brothers an offer they can’t refuse. Except that they do and the plan they hatch to save Shady’s and Ransom Island is pure genius.

Arceneaux reminds me powerfully of James Lee Burke in his talent for visceral evocation of a very particular historical period and place. I was often laughing aloud - he excels at wry humor. For example:

[speaking of the Ginestra brothers' fondness for arson] “… or burned down a rival’s saloon (the Ginestra brothers called it “building a vacant lot”)…”

And this:

“A band on the road was something between a herd of jive-talking gypsies and a troop of reefer-smoking Foreign Legionnaires.”

Arceneaux is the King of Opening Paragraphs; skillfully dangling a combination of quirky incongruity and foreboding that compels you to find out what the hell he’s talking about - the literary equivalent of a double-take. For example:

“Bob Sweeney, the head salesman and self-described kick-ass stemwinder of the only men’s haberdashery in Rockport, was minding his own business when a man with one shoe walked in.”

And this:

“Old Hitler’s body washed up on Ransom Island one June morning in 1953, a feathered red-cane lance buried deep in his back. Some insisted it was fate, while others shook their heads and said it was a crying shame. Later on, when all the excitement died down, most everyone agreed it had been a portent of things to come.”

Incidentally, Ransom Island also contains the entire campaign strategy of the Texas Republican Party, then AND now, and the best and most succinct definition of the KKK I’ve ever come across: “… they were mostly white trash who preyed on those lower on the social food chain to distract themselves from their own ignorance and poverty.” Ta-daa!

I thoroughly enjoyed Ransom Island; it is an easy-reading, fast and rollicking ride. The only flat note in this composition is a subplot involving Rupert Sweetwater and his wife, Darla, which I found unnecessary – I wanted to bat her away like a fly. Otherwise there is everything to like here and Texans will especially enjoy Ransom Island because they will recognize these places and these characters. We all know the folks inhabiting this small barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico and Arceneaux conjures them with affection and without caricature.… (més)