Kracker Flats

Review by J Driscoll - One Crazy Tale

This story is one wild ride. Anything that can happen in Florida does. After a hurricane all but wipes Tampa off the map Marci faces some stark choices as she tries to keep it together. The characters are interesting and well developed, especially the protagonist Marci. I kept putting myself in her shoes and trying to decide what I would do in her situation.

If you like Carl Haaisen you'll love Kracker Flats.

*****

Kracker Flats is Marci Lindum's tale of survival after Hurricane Kate, the most destructive hurricane ever, strikes Tampa Bay. Her brat daughter is missing. Her inept husband is attacked by an alligator. Hoarding neighbors are selfish, while others have gone crazy. To find her daughter and to seek help, Marci takes charge and ventures on a journey that leaves her stranded within a band of odd, and at times colorful, indigents—Krackers, who by design are remarkably well prepared. ~ Excerpted from the book description

Raised in a large family, if you wanted peace, a sense of privacy, you went somewhere within yourself, creating a story to escape. I'n my dreams I'd travel, do great things. It was if I was already there. ~ Mario Iezzoni

 Excerpt

“It’s Momma’s money, Critter,” Dale corrected him. “She earned it and left it with the mine-hole. And watch your mouth about Chadda, it ain’t no good sewering her reputation, especially for her boys.”

“Don’t unload the repo,” Dale said. “Leave it on the wrecker. I need you to tear the seats out of those school buses I bought at the government auction last summer. Going to turn them into sleeping quarters.”

“Any of them run?” Critter asked. “Shit yes!” Dale said. “They got plenty big gas tanks for fuel storage for during the hurricane. They’re dual tanks. Pasco School District had them made so’s they don’t waste time refueling.”

 “Man, you got a deal. There must be twenty of them. You want me to do them all?”

Critter’s answer came back as a cold stare. Dale knew only a few would ever get prepped.

“Did you hear Monk’s going to be on TV at noon?”

Dale didn’t answer. He was studying the arriving squall line and measuring its distance from shore.

 “Are you heading to Gator Tales to slump some beers and watch?”

“Later,” Dale finally answered. “Gotta pull the air-conditioning units out of my windows and hang shutters. A hurricane is coming.”

“Are you sure?”

Dale pointed to the low cloud layer over the Gulf of Mexico. “I’ll need you to help me evacuate the Kracker folks in the trailer park and move them into these here junk cars and buses.”

Critter tugged his beard. “Your momma was always dead-on about the weather,” he said. “She’s been predicting this hurricane for a good long time.”

“It’s all Momma talked about. Damn woman never relaxed about it. And now that she’s somewhere else, I betcha she got something to do with bringing that hurricane this way,” Dale said.

Meet The Author

 

Mario Iezzoni is a teacher and small business advisor at the University of South Florida. Mario published The Postulant (2007) and Kracker Flats (2013). He is currently working on two more novels.

 Kracker Flats is Available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle!

 Visit the author's website and follow him on Twitter