Arts Alive! podcast: Novelist George L. Fleming

Let’s welcome novelist George L. Fleming to the Arts Alive! podcast.

Based in Tampa, the former journalist and writing teacher has just published Bonaire Blonde, the fourth book in his “Tampa Bay Tropics” series. Like its predecessors, the new one is about Tampa power couple Jake Dupree – a former CIA operative – and his wife, brilliant attorney Reed O’Hara.

Along with being young, beautiful and wealthy, the two are not just physically fit, they’re exceptional specimens, outside and in. Put all of this together and criminal enterprises, in the fiction of Fleming’s humid Hillsborough universe, don’t stand a chance.

Bonaire Blonde (St. Petersburg Press) races along at breakneck speed. In typical Fleming style, it’s nonstop action, sex, violence, intrigue and witty, pun-laced dialogue as Jake and Reed investigate the brutal murder of one of their friends. Alternating chapters give us our heroes’ origin story.

During the podcast, Fleming quotes, with obvious relish, from an early review, which called the book “A flirtatious tropical thriller with unconventional style.”

The review concluded: “If you enjoy outrageously sexualized old spy movies that are filled with cheesy one-liners, you will love Bonaire Blonde.”

Win! “Thank you,” Fleming mock-responds. “Because that’s my target audience.”

Click on the arrow to listen to the interview.