Paul won the John D. MacDonald Florida Fiction Award for his Jake Lassiter series. A Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-nosed lawyer, Lassiter appeared in seven novels. He has been described by Booklist as “one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction” and by The Miami Herald as having “a lot more charisma than Perry Mason ever did.”
To Speak for the Dead, the first of the Lassiter series, was honored as one of the ten best mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times, which described Lassiter as “Travis McGee with a law degree.” A screen adaptation of the book – re-titled Jake Lassiter on the Bayou – appeared as an NBC movie in 1995. (Over Paul’s objections, the setting was moved from Miami to New Orleans. “Would they have moved Sherlock Holmes to Brooklyn?” the author asked).
Photo by Alan Weissman
