The Most of Everything: The Story of Miami Beach by Harold Mehling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was soaring to ten stars until the last couple of chapters diverted into an emotional wandering into the author’s view of prejudice of the Jewish community.

This book rockets off with humor and a great storytelling style as it unfolds the history of northeastern Dade County. Lots of flourishing prose of development pros and cons, results and dreams of the future. Mobsters, millionaires, drunks and writers are all covered in an entertaining and informed way that can only leave a reader satisfied. I with more books took this tact in history writing.

Then things go awry as author Mehling takes two chapters to detail his feelings about Jewish prejudice with no reference of any other prejudices in the area, such as to blacks, the poor or anyone else. Some of what he writes are neat anecdotes. But otherwise, he presents a slim case as to what was going on at the time and detailed specifics as he does throughout the rest of the book. He seems to be emotionally driven enough and certainly capable of writing a separate book that might have covered the subject of Jews in South Florida. As someone who has worked involving history of Jews in Florida, a volume like that would have been welcome.

Despite his uneven chapters of prejudice, the rest of the book is dynamte. So…

I recommend this book. 7 out of 10 points.

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Mash Goes to Miami by Richard Hooker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The most frustrating part of this book is the less-than last 50 pages that take place in Florida with the main characters! This book should be titled: MASH Travels the Globe. The usual large bundle of characters are all over the place in the typical Butterworth fashion in this series. All traveling from Maine to Paris to Alaska to New Orleans, etc. This book should not have the name Miami in it.

The only use of a Miami setting is a pit stop at the Miami International Airport, something about a Catholic church early on and scenes in a hotel along Miami Beach that is loosely compared to The Fontainbleu.

The entire cover is deceiving. This is not a continuation of the MASH TV series. Butterworth is following the lead of Hooker and using those characters, plus plenty more. The cover art shows the characters in fatigues and indicates the gang is going to “invade unwary Miami”. None of which happens. It’s not atypical to have a cover not match the interior story. Considering the promises of “The smash hit TV series MASH Goes to Miami” and how far the story is from Miami, this is particularly bad packaging.

The writing is typical of the series. Butterworth is chug-a-lugging books at this point and the non-ending elongated names of everything and heavy line-by-line repetition are the filler. The writing is very funny and fun. There’s not much of a story, though the makings of a few are present. It’s all more of a travelogue. Next time I see author Tim Dorsey, I must ask him how much the Butterworth books influenced him.

The characters are not only well written, but written over and over and over again. I remember now why I had trouble getting through these three decades ago.

I believe this is my second time reading this entry in the series. Some 35 years ago I read most of the series. The trouble with the mutli-named everything is that after all these years, the books all merge together in my head. Reading this brought that to my attention.

Poking around about named authors, Richard Hooker and William Butterworth, I was surprised to learn Hooker didn’t write the continuing series and Butterworth is multiple people! Shocked to learn Butterworth is also W.E.B. Griffin! I’ve always had fond memories of the MASH series. Now I have to try a “Griffin” book, something I’ve put off due to their length and size of series. Curious about the use of humor and strung together names.

I really like the humor and the writing and the characters. It’s plotting that’s a problem. Also, many today would likely despise the 4 or 5 names everything and body has.

Despite all that, the book is very funny and a genre vanishing from the bookshelves, so…
Bottom line: I recommend this book: 5 of 10 points.

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More books about the Miami area.

Knights of the Fourth Estate

Very well written story of The Miami Herald. Smiley covers the beginnings of The Herald in the early 1900s to the early 60s. The profiles are very well done of staff and owners. Better still are the various stories behind the stories throughout. This book is out of print.

The Hell with Politics

Very good set of stories of Jane Wood Reno, mother of former US Attorney General Janet Reno, amongst other successful children. It’s obvious, though, in this set of nearly disjointed stories that Janet, or Janny Baby, was Jane Wood Reno’s very favorite. Oddly a real fleshing out of her relationship with her children is not included. Jane Wood Reno could be considered a more modern day pioneer in south Florida as she blazed trails in journalism, interaction with the Seminole and Miccosukee indian tribes, etc. The writing of her experience in the disastrous 1926 hurricane is particularly interesting and haunting. The last chapter is a short biography of her life. The author to this is not mentioned, but would assume it’s her grandson and editor of the book. Not just the lack of this credit, but placing dates on the essays included are missing, making it difficult to associate the stories and their place in time. Otherwise well written and lots of south Florida history!

The Executioner – Miami Massacre

Though you would think this book is of pretty predictable stuff, it’s not. A whole other element comes in and becomes a solid part of the adventure of Mack Bolan wiping out the mob at an electric pace. Pendleton really did a good job pacing a story and creating characters. Though, rather forgettable characters and most who don’t survive the story. Thus making the character creation a practical effort that still gives way to not knowing who lives and dies. As always, an exciting time with Mr. Bolan. By the way, on the Miami side, Pendleton did more than a cursory glance to the area. He even mentions the well known Crime Commission effort by Dade County. Though that really was more in force in the ’50s. Also, adding an element to the story that well illustrates a current mood at the time of the late ’60s of a certain people in Dade County. Compared to others, Pendelton does a very nice job of getting a sense of place and being rather accurate.

Two more Florida based mysteries read. One of Mignon Eberhart’s Tampa Bay novels and a later Miami-based Mike Shayne mystery. Eberhart writes of a fictious Florida County on the east coast with a pretty good understanding of the area. The Shayne novel is after the actual series by Dave Dresser. This one stays pretty true to the original series, just with curse words. I veered into one of Vince Flynn’s latest, ‘Protect and Defend’. Another good thriller.