Harbinger - Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky

Set on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida, Harbinger centers around two lifelong friends and fishing charter boat partners, Boyd Tomlin and Hicks Ledoux. Boyd is the serious one who always makes sure things get done, and Hicks is the carefree one who always makes sure everyone has a good time. 

But times aren’t so good. They are struggling to get charters, and bills are coming due. In desperate need of money, they consider smuggling drugs to make ends meet. By chance or fate, they meet two beautiful sisters who will change everything—a young Ania and her kid sister Karolyn. Hicks is immediately attached to the brash, confident Ania while Boyd gravitates toward Karolyn. 

As romance blossoms, Boyd and Hicks quickly find themselves embroiled in the world of illegal drug trade, romance, danger and violence lurking around every corner.

This is some serious Florida noir here, reminiscent of John D. McDonald, Day Keene, Gil Brewer, and Charles Williams. It's the latest book in the popular Ania series by Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky, but if you haven't read any of the others (and they're all good), that doesn't matter because chronologically this is the first book in the series. Told in alternating first person chapters by the two protagonists, Boyd and Hicks, HARBINGER is very well written, a little humorous in places but mostly poignant and tragic, with an excellent twist late in the game that I didn't see coming. Ania is a fascinating, unusual character, and this bit of back-story on her is very welcome. I liked HARBINGER a lot and think it's a fine example of contemporary crime fiction.

Blood on Blood - Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky

Mick and Jerzy Sawyer are half-brothers in Chicago, but there's no brotherly love between these two. Jerzy is a career criminal, Mick is a disgraced former cop who went to prison because he took the fall for other cops. The two of them basically hate each other . . . but they're forced to work together when their dying convict father puts them on the trail of a stolen necklace and earrings worth millions of dollars. More complications ensue when Jerzy finds himself in the middle of a gang war and both brothers (wouldn't you know it?) fall for the same beautiful blonde.

BLOOD ON BLOOD is the first novel collaboration by Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky. Zafiro has written other crime novels and short stories and Wilsky has authored quite a few short stories. They've joined forces here to produce an excellent hardboiled crime thriller. The narration switches back and forth between Mick and Jerzy, and also between past and present tense, and while those are both techniques I often don't care for, Zafiro and Wilsky make them work very well.

They've also written a sequel to this novel, QUEEN OF DIAMONDS, that's out already, and I plan to read it as well, but I recommend you start with BLOOD ON BLOOD. If you enjoy fast-paced, gritty crime fiction, I think you'll like it a lot.