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Ransom Island
It’s 1953 and life is good at Shady’s, the Sweetwater brothers’ fish camp, dancehall, and beer joint on Ransom Island.
The biggest event in the island’s history is coming up—an integrated dance featuring Duke Ellington. It’s a daring idea for fifties-era Texas, and not everyone is happy about it.
But soon interracial dancing becomes the least of the Sweetwaters’ problems. Galveston mobsters track a runaway girl to Shady’s and decide the offbeat island is the perfect place to diversify their illegal rackets . . .
And God help anyone who gets in their way.
Suddenly, life on sleepy little Ransom Island becomes crowded, complicated—and very, very dangerous.
The biggest event in the island’s history is coming up—an integrated dance featuring Duke Ellington. It’s a daring idea for fifties-era Texas, and not everyone is happy about it.
But soon interracial dancing becomes the least of the Sweetwaters’ problems. Galveston mobsters track a runaway girl to Shady’s and decide the offbeat island is the perfect place to diversify their illegal rackets . . .
And God help anyone who gets in their way.
Suddenly, life on sleepy little Ransom Island becomes crowded, complicated—and very, very dangerous.
300 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2014
About the author
Miles Arceneaux
10 books29 followersMiles Arceneaux is the storytelling alter ego of Texas-based writers Brent Douglass, John T. Davis and James R. Dennis. Miles was born many years ago among this group of old friends who penned, as a literary lark, the collectively-written novel Thin Slice of Life —a book that has given birth to a series of witty Gulf Coast thrillers based on its central characters.
ABOUT BRENT
International businessman Brent Douglass writes in airports, hotel rooms and drinking establishments around the world. At present he is a principal owner of KBC Networks and peddles data transmission equipment in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is the cultured, cosmopolitan writer of the Miles Arceneaux trio.
ABOUT JOHN T.
John T. Davis has been writing about the music, culture and personalities of Austin and the Southwest for more than 30 years for local, regional and national publications. He is the streetwise and roguishly irreverent co-author of the Miles Arceneaux canon, albeit its most discerning.
ABOUT JAMES
James R. Dennis, a Dominican friar, practices law in San Antonio and across Texas. He writes and teaches on spiritual matters and lives with his two ill-behaved dogs. Of the three writers, he is the good-looking, funny one.
ABOUT BRENT
International businessman Brent Douglass writes in airports, hotel rooms and drinking establishments around the world. At present he is a principal owner of KBC Networks and peddles data transmission equipment in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is the cultured, cosmopolitan writer of the Miles Arceneaux trio.
ABOUT JOHN T.
John T. Davis has been writing about the music, culture and personalities of Austin and the Southwest for more than 30 years for local, regional and national publications. He is the streetwise and roguishly irreverent co-author of the Miles Arceneaux canon, albeit its most discerning.
ABOUT JAMES
James R. Dennis, a Dominican friar, practices law in San Antonio and across Texas. He writes and teaches on spiritual matters and lives with his two ill-behaved dogs. Of the three writers, he is the good-looking, funny one.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 10, 2014
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.
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.
December 4, 2016
This was my favorite of the three Miles Arceneaux mysteries I've read. The characters are well drawn and the tensions of the historical period are beautifully portrayed. I look forward to #4.
May 17, 2017
Gulf Coast Noir pushes enough of my buttons for me to read everything these three authors working under the name of Miles Arceneaux crank out, but I'll read the others on the Gulf Coast itself, where I can better appreciate the local flourishes and let my quibbles roll out with the tide.
The authors seem to be swapping off chapter by chapter here. One is trying to kill me with folksy similes masquerading as local color, but my favorite of them drops this paragraph at the perfect moment:
A flock of roseate spoonbills was flying overhead, and the last rays of the sun seemed to electrify their bright plumage, accentuating the pink and salmon of their wings and the brilliant carmine at their shoulders. Rigid legs, straight as arrows, trailed behind bright orange tails. The intense color of the birds was arresting, and the two men on the ground could not take their eyes off them...The birds briefly dipped their spatula-shaped bills at the figures below and then winged away, seaward.
The authors seem to be swapping off chapter by chapter here. One is trying to kill me with folksy similes masquerading as local color, but my favorite of them drops this paragraph at the perfect moment:
A flock of roseate spoonbills was flying overhead, and the last rays of the sun seemed to electrify their bright plumage, accentuating the pink and salmon of their wings and the brilliant carmine at their shoulders. Rigid legs, straight as arrows, trailed behind bright orange tails. The intense color of the birds was arresting, and the two men on the ground could not take their eyes off them...The birds briefly dipped their spatula-shaped bills at the figures below and then winged away, seaward.
November 14, 2021
Apologies to the author, but this is not my sort of book. I heard about this series and thought I'd give it a try since "mystery" is a genre I sometimes enjoy. But no. I read only the first few chapters and gave up, so I cannot say that the book doesn't improve in later chapters.
However, if you enjoy misogynistic male characters and flighty female characters with little substance. This might be just the ticket for your light reading pleasure because it is a bestseller and so many must find it worthy. It's just not for me.
However, if you enjoy misogynistic male characters and flighty female characters with little substance. This might be just the ticket for your light reading pleasure because it is a bestseller and so many must find it worthy. It's just not for me.
October 9, 2014
A great read full of intrigue,murder,love and worth remembering.
December 18, 2016
A fun light easy read. Enjoyed it very much.
January 16, 2015
Characters are fun and interesting.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews