In which laid-back P.I. Tony Lowell takes on racists, wife beaters, industrial polluters, and a former baseball Hall of Famer in this, the original eco-thriller by Gene (E.C.) Ayres
A crusading you black man is murdered when his environmental concerns for Florida's only aquifer butts heads with the state's white power brokers, including a former Hall of Fame baseball player, now a full time resident and commercial land developer. Budget constraints force local police, much against their will, to engage sailor and part-time P.I. Tony Lowell to investigate the crime. Lowell has bigger fish to fry, with his daughter, a stranger to him until recently, deciding to follow her boyfriend to a distant college. Feeling alone and distinctly abandoned, Tony wants to take a few days to feel sorry for himself, but the cops won't take no for an answer. Before he knows it, the would-be sailor is up to his neck in hungry alligators and swimming for his life.
(St. Martin’s Press release)
(Originally published by St. Martin's Press
written by E. C. Ayres 1995)
Excerpt
Perry Garwood was on a roll. "When probability slit the underbelly of oblivion, the universe is what spilled out," he expounded. "It's hard physics, man. And there's a debt for the gift of that ultimate colossal birth. It's called solitude. Someday it's all gotta be squeezed back in there, and then we'll be together again in the womb of existence. Mean¬while, we're all fuckin' on our own."
"That's hard physics?" Lowell spoke through a dense fog, that was pressing painfully outward from the inside of his skull.
"Either that or metaphysics. I took a lot of both. I get them confused."
"Small wonder."
Perry handed Lowell a beer and stared at the sky. They were sitting on Perry's veranda, in the backwoods near Terra Ceia. Perry had brought Lowell back to his place after the call from Lena. Lowell had his head wrapped in a white handkerchief, and looked more like an Indian than Perry did.
"Just what I need," groaned Lowell. "A hangover, on top of my headache."
"You're lucky it was only a concussion. You lost a lot of blood, bro'."
"That probably explains the fog in my head."
"Nah, that's more like due to atrophy. The brain don't use much blood anyways, it's all circuitry, which in your case was obviously not functioning at the time anyway, going up there expecting to take on every fuckin' redneck—"
"Cracker—" corrected Lowell.
"—in the phosphates industry, which happens to be a major industry in central Florida—"
"Number six," said Lowell. "After tourism, agriculture, guns, drugs, and dancing girls."
"Right," effused Perry. "It's big bucks, man."
Lowell was recovered enough to slap mosquitoes. Perry seemed immune. Lowell studied him, his vision almost back to normal now. Huge, like most Creek Indians, Perry seemed like a larger-than-life figure at times, able to wade through life like Paul Bunyan through a Minnesota lake. Perry had driven out to the Plant City Hospital where the cops had brought him. Lowell had been found within min¬utes, as the first groups of disgruntled fans left the stands, heading for home, or the nearest bar. Rush hour, Plant City style. They'd taken him to the emergency room in the am¬bulance that was in routine attendance at the game, where he was treated for a concussion and contusion, and charged about a thousand dollars. He was still unconscious by the time the Manatee City Police were called (per Bedrosian's card in his wallet).
She got there in an hour, just as he was coming to. There had been no witnesses, but the cop on the beat did report that Cahill's car had left early. How early, he wasn't sure. The game had ended in the tenth, a home run by the Mar¬lin's pitcher. The local cops were used to muggings in sta¬dium parking lots. It was part of the new life in the small city.
Professional Reviews
From Library Journal 12/1/95
Tampa Bay-area private investigator Tony Lowell is an underemployed Vietnam vet and inveterate sailor. He assists police detective Lena Bedrosian (Hour of the Manatee, St. Martin's 1994) in solving the murder of a young African American employee of the state's environmental protection agency. Tony's quest for information takes him to the inland hamlets of Orange Blossom and Manatee. While there, he questions the close-mouthed employees of a phosphate plant about a suspicious sinkhole and dodges the abusive boyfriend of a beautiful witness. Aryes exhibits mastery of the Florida setting, a firm handle on characterizations, and a good sense of dramatic timing. For all collections.
From Booklist 11/95
Retired photographer, beach bum, and sometime sleuth Tony Lowell is a roguish fortysomething hippie whose only nod to the establishment is his feisty friendship with police detective Lena Bedrosian. Lowell's latest adventure begins when old friend Ernie Larson asks him to investigate the disappearance of Ernie's nephew, Timothy Cross a young black man who came to Florida to work as an environmental engineer. It doesn't take long for Lowell to find out that Tim's been murdered, but why is another matter. Following a complex and tricky trail of clues leads Lowell through the minefields of racial prejudice, battered women, illicit affairs, industrial cover-ups, graft, and corruption. Veteran writer Ayres knows his stuff--his characters are offbeat and intriguing, his plot is realistically menacing, he offers a nice balance of humor and suspense, and Tony Lowell is a wacky but likeable guy who is sort of Travis McGee, Don Quixote, and Willie Nelson rolled into one.--Emily Melton
A mystery with a conscience
After the publication of his debut novel Hour of the Manatee, E. C. Ayres was praised for his sharp and original style. Now in his sophomore effort, the St. Petersburg (now Seattle) resident has done it again.
He has brilliantly and thoughtfully interwoven a suspenseful talke with some actual, pressing Florida environmental issues. Eye of the Gator is a must read for anyone looking for a brainy mystery.
The opening pages of Eye of the Gator begin rather slowly. We again meet photographer and part-time P.I. Tony Lowell, first introduced in Hour of the Manatee. Now almost broke, Lowell is smarting from the sudden departure of his daughter, with whom he recently was reunited. Then he learns that Timothy Cross, the nephew of Ernie Larson, one of Lowell’s oldest pals, has been murdered. Lowell agrees to help his friendly rival, Detective Lena Bedrosian, find Cross’s killer.
Cross was a recent college graduate and an environmental activist working for the government, so Lowell first investigates the under-the-table dealings of the local fertilizer plant, Florida Fertilizers. There he finds workers willing to risk contamination of the state aquifer to save their jobs. (Unfortunately this is often a real-life occurrence, as Ayres illustrates with a quote from the St. Petersburg Times on the contamination of the Florida aquifer).
Lowell’s list of suspects doesn’t include just fertilizer thugs. He also finds himself pitted against racist hippie-haters and a rather dangerous and violent boyfriend with Special Forces training. In fact, as in most good mystery novels, everyone seems to deserve the shaft—from the racist fertilizer industry do-boy, to the jealousy-filled black advocacy group leader.
But as the novel draws to an end, Ayres provides enough information so that we’re able to narrow down the list. In a refreshing change from the casually thrown-together mystery, all of P.I. Tony Lowell’s pieces fit.
Lowell fits too. One of the most pleasing things about Ayres’ hero is his lack of testosterone-driven emotion (although there is the mandatory, gratuitous sex scene, which isn’t all that graphic).
The level-headed Lowell doesn’t even carry a gun. In an entertainment industry usually driven by murder and mayhem, Eye of the Gator reserves most of its killing for the climax. Of course, Lowell is trained in special defense tactics, so don’t try this at home.--Carlos Senior
Book three in series. Excitement and tension begin on the first day of filming a Restoration drama on location at the historic Jacobean mansion, Ham House in Surrey.
