Hard Aground (1993) by James W. Hall

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Hard Aground (1993)

by James W. Hall

Miami, Florida

Florida: 16/21

  I can see why editor Susan Straigh picked this James W. Hall 90's noir- it's the "Chinatown" influenced history of Miami plot line that backstops the otherwise forgettable tale of a mentally ill "boat bum" brother trying to solve the cold-blooded murder of his urban archeologist(!) brother.  Cringe inducing plot points abound, from the depiction of the schizophrenia suffered by the protagonist to the trans-hitwoman.  Along the way you get an absolutely inexplicable mother-daughter relationship and some mid sex scenes.  But the material about the history of Miami is welcome, and rare within the parameters of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project, mostly because most of the books about poor people with grade-school educations who don't know much about history.  History is largely communicated through works of historical fiction with those sorts of characters, rather than the presence of any characters who know about historical context, as is very much the case here.