Flying Across the Sawgrass Prairie

An eccentric executive director, Christine Tyler, who lives on the beach but develops
farm worker housing in a poor, violent and crime ridden rural ghetto in Sand Cut, Florida,
becomes embroiled in dangerous and bizarre events. Colorful characters, who are a staple
of rural Florida life, abound. A series of violent crimes and events swirl around her but
she remains virtually untouched by them, staying focused on ameliorating the brutal living
conditions of the poorest of the poor--migrant farm workers. Her inventive approach to
housing development, in a state where “construction fraud is considered a legitimate
profession” enables her to outwit cons, crooks, incompetents, and a disengaged board of
directors. Her “bad attitude” as she confronts obstacles--financial, logistical and
sociological--to building housing for the poor and disenfranchised is a recurring theme.
All the males with whom she interacts complain bitterly about it. She can be inventive and ruthless in circumventing opposition and obdurately maintains that “full contact rural redevelopment” does not allow the luxury of collegiality.
While seeking to find lots to build houses upon, she meets a cranky, sociopath, Raul Gervase,--a former Navy SEAL and Wharton
MBA--who aspires to become an urban legend. Posing as a Rastafarian slacker tucked away in Sand Cut’s Wesley Heights neighborhood, his unexpected story is gradually revealed, as is
his complex personality. His approach to social justice is draconian, primarily because he
lacks the patience for the bureaucratic process.
Christine’s boyfriend of many years, Bryce Ems, is a staid and practical civil and
structural engineer from Boston. He finds her lifestyle shocking and frightening and wants
nothing more than to get her to quit the job, calm down and make babies. His failure to
manage this--or her--infuriates him although he obstinately endures as he employs an
extensive array of manipulative ploys, all of which fail to accomplish his goal.
Raul and Christine’s lives become intertwined when she is talking to him one morning. Both of them are nearly killed--because of him--and after that he is unable to extricate himself from this unwanted entanglement because the rural farm worker community would be unforgiving if he were to be responsible for her being unable to complete the housing. He has a strong antipathy to her--she gives him hives--but she persists in the belief that he is a nice guy and that they are just alike and will eventually be friends.
The CEO of a Fortune 500 mega-firm has become involved in the illegal arms trade and gradually it proves more than he can handle. He learns that he may be out of his depth after a violent episode with an unhappy customer.
This is a beach book--light summer entertainment reading--full of adventures, amusing dialogue, odd twists and turns, the kind of people who can only be found in Florida, and
evocative descriptions of Florida’s beautiful and vanishing natural environment--including the sawgrass prairie which Christine must traverse each day at excessive rates of speed in order to
accomplish her task