Books Set in Hot Climates

Fiction

Elizabeth Berg, Durable Goods.
In the sweltering heat of a Texas summer, a girl and her sister struggle to cope with their mother’s death and their father’s violent outbursts.

James Carlos Blake, Red Grass River.
The sweeping chronicle of a gangland-style family feud in the steamy Florida Everglades that peaks during the most lawless days of Prohibition.

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky.
Three Americans endure the dangers of the North African desert, losing their smug superiority in the face of a strange and difficult world.

Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree.
An adolescent boy growing up in a small Georgia town in 1906 contends with gossip about his grandfather’s marriage to a young Yankee woman only three weeks after the death of his first wife.

Mark Childress, Crazy in Alabama.
In Alabama during the racial tensions of the summer of 1965, an orphan boy comes of age, and his aunt escapes from an unhappy marriage and pursues her dream to become a Hollywood starlet.

Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust.
In the 1920s, an anthropology student returns home to the Sea Islands off the Carolina coast to observe the Gullah people and rediscovers her own heritage.

Connie May Fowler, Remembering Blue.
A woman mourns the loss of her husband in the waters off the Gulf Coast of Florida while she tells the story of her own chaotic, troubled life, and her relationship with her husband's colorful family.

Alex Garland, The Beach.
A rootless young traveler is given a map to a tropical paradise where a group of people have established a utopian commune, but he soon learns that the Beach culture has troubling, deadly undercurrents.

C. S. Godshalk, Kalimantaan.
A rich and complex novel based on the true story of an Englishman who established his own private kingdom on the island of Borneo in the 19th century

Alice Hoffman, Turtle Moon.
A divorced woman moves to Florida with her son and becomes involved in a murder investigation when her son runs away with the victim’s baby.

Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster.
A charismatic man establishes a commune in the desert near an Outback town and lures its people on a path to destruction.

Robert Inman, Dairy Queen Days.
A teenage boy in Georgia finds his life turned upside down one summer when he’s sent to live in a small town with his eccentric relatives after his mother is hospitalized for depression.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust.
An Englishwoman in colonial India suffocated by the propriety and social constraints of her position as the wife of an important civil servant is drawn into the spell of an Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots.

Tucker Malarkey, An Obvious Enchantment.
An archaeologist travels to a lush tropical island off the coast of Kenya in search of her missing mentor, a mercurial scholar whose research fuels the fires of conflict between the island’s Africans and Europeans.

Jill McCorkle, Ferris Beach.
A young girl growing up in a small Southern town is drawn to her daring, reckless cousin until a fateful 4th of July changes their lives forever.

Brian Moore, The Magician’s Wife.
A woman accompanies her magician husband to Algeria to demonstrate French imperial power at the command of Emperor Napoleon III, but she is repelled by the behavior of her countrymen and is drawn to the simplicity of Arab faith and culture.

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea.
In this novel based on the early life of Jane Eyre’s “madwoman in the attic,” a Creole heiress who grows up on a decaying plantation in the West Indies is married off to an Englishman who takes her away from her home to an inhospitable climate.

Robert Sole, The Photographer’s Wife.
A photographer’s wife whose skill with the camera far eclipses her husband’s must choose between the role of a wife and that of an artist during the rise of nationalism in 19th century Egypt.

Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love.
An American involved in a turbulent relationship with an Egyptian-American conductor goes to Egypt to learn about her ancestor, an English widow who fell in love with an Egyptian in the early 1900s.


Mysteries

Steve Allen, Murder in Hawaii.
Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows accept an invitation to guest star in a new TV series called "Hawaii Wave," but they are unprepared for the string of "accidents" that seem directed at them.

Rudolfo Anaya, Zia Summer.
When his cousin’s corpse is found drained of blood, Albuquerque private eye Sonny Baca discovers that she was linked to a sun-worshipping cult planning a terrorist act.

E. C. Ayres, Hour of the Manatee.
An elderly housekeeper in Florida claims that she’s been institutionalized for 25 years to keep her from telling the truth about the death of a playboy, but she’s murdered before she can tell all.

John Ball, In the Heat of the Night.
The murder of a noted orchestra conductor at a local music festival pits African-American homicide expert Virgil Tibbs against the bigoted police department in a small Southern town when they are forced to join forces to solve the crime.

Nevada Barr, Endangered Species.
Posted on Cumberland Island during a drought, park ranger Anna Pigeon is unable to save the passengers of a crashed plane and launches a dangerous investigation when she learns that a saboteur caused the accident.

Nancy Bartholomew, The Miracle Strip.
When a supposed friend asks for help after the corpse of a mobster turns up in her bedroom, Sierra Lavotini, an exotic dancer in Panama City, Florida, turns sleuth, only to find herself assaulted, shot at, harassed by the police, & abandoned by her "friend."

Edna Buchanan, Miami, It’s Murder.
Crime reporter Britt Montero is persuaded to investigate a 22-year-old murder that a retired detective thinks was committed by a candidate for governor of Florida.

James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain.
New Orleans cop Dave Robicheaux discovers a body while fishing in a back-country bayou.

Michael Connelly, The Black Echo.
LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch finds the body of a friend in an abandoned water tunnel and discovers that the man was using the tunneling skills he’d learned in Vietnam to rob a bank.

Tom Corcoran, The Mango Opera.
Key West crime scene photographer Alex Rutledge races to clear his name when someone starts murdering his former lovers.

Robert Crais, The Monkey’s Raincoat.
An L.A. private eye hired to find a woman’s missing husband and son links their disappearance to the theft of drugs from a kingpin.

Tim Dorsey, Florida Roadkill.
When a suitcase containing $5 million is dropped into the trunk of the wrong car, a convoy of homicidal wackos follow in hot pursuit, with a stop in Miami to take in the last game of the Series.

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Bloody Waters.
When Miami private eye Lupe Solano is asked to find an adopted child’s birth mother for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, she uncovers a lucrative baby-selling racket.

Kathleen & Michael Gear, The Visitant.
An anthropologist in New Mexico is confronted with a centuries-old mystery when she discovers graves of women and children with smashed skulls.

Anne George, Murder on a Bad Hair Day.
Arguing about everything from hair color to husbands, Alabama sisters Patricia Anne and Mary Alice dispute over two local artists and are shocked when the first artist is murdered and the second narrowly escapes the same fate.

Charlaine Harris, Shakespeare’s Landlord.
House cleaner Lily Bard of Shakespeare, Arkansas, has a secret in her past that makes her a suspect when her noisy, unpopular neighbor is murdered.

Steven Havill, Prolonged Exposure.
New Mexico Undersherrif Bill Gastner is recovering from heart surgery but is called back to duty when a toddler disappears on a mesa and his deputy’s child is kidnapped shortly thereafter.

Martin Hedgwood, Big Easy Backroad.
When New Orleans investigator Jack Delmas offers to help a pretty bartender find a missing truck driver, he opens a can of worms that leads to murder.

Joan Hess, Malice in Maggody.
Arly Hanks leaves New York City to become sheriff of her hometown in the Ozarks and must contend with ccentric residents, strange doings & murder.

Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way.
When a dead man with a mouth full of sand is found in Many Ruins Canyon, Joe Leaphorn investigates a possible connection to witchcraft.

Corson Hirschfeld, Aloha, Mr. Lucky.
A debt-ridden but carefree freelance writer in Hawaii is working on a story involving personal ads when a woman who answered his ad turns up dead.

J. A. Jance, Desert Heat.
When a lawman running for Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, is murdered & the police claim he was corrupt, his wife Joanna Brady tries to clear his name.

Paul Levine, Slashback.
Miami Dolphin linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter hooks up with a windsurfer as he tracks a thief and a murderer from Bimini to Maui.

John Lutz, Tropical Heat.
Florida private eye Fred Carver reluctantly agrees to look for a woman’s lover, though everyone believes the man committed suicide.

T. J. MacGregor, Mistress of the Bones.
A husband-and-wife detective team investigate the death of a bail bondsman who was obsessed with the ghost of a Cuban slave said to haunt his home.

Margaret Maron, Southern Discomfort.
North Carolina judge Deborah Knott investigates when her niece is suspected of murdering a man who assaulted her at a construction site.

Michael McGarrity, Tularosa.
An ex-chief of detectives in Santa Fe retires early after being shot, but he's drawn back into police work by his former partner, who asks him to locate his son.

Kirk Mitchell, Cry Dance.
When the mutilated body of a Bureau of Land Management official is found on a reservation in the Grand Canyon, an Indian Affairs investigator and an FBI agent become bait in an ancient battle.

T. Jefferson Parker, Laguna Heat.
Homicide detective Tom Shephard is trying to rebuild a shattered career in the sleepy seaside town of Laguna Beach when someone starts setting the town’s prominent citizens on fire.

Richard Parrish, The Dividing Line.
A World War II vet haunted by memories of the Holocaust and by his wife’s death takes a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Arizona and gets involved in a dispute between a tribe and a mining company.

Rick Riordan, Big Red Tequila.
Tres Navarre returns to San Antonio at the request of a former girlfriend who’s involved in trouble that may be related to the murder of his father 10 years before.

Julie Smith, House of Blues.
When a crime wave culminates in the murder of a prominent restaurateur, New Orleans homicide detective Skip Langdon begins a detailed search for the killer, as well as for the victim's missing
heirs.

Susan Sussman & Sarajane Avidon, Cruising for Murder.
Chicago actress Morgan Taylor leaves winter behind to take a job on a Caribbean cruise ship not knowing that the woman she’s replacing was murdered.

Aimee & David Thurlo, Blackening Song.
Promising young FBI agent Ella Clah is shocked to learn that her father has been ritually murdered and that her brother, a Navajo medicine man, is the prime suspect.

Kathy Hogan Trocheck, To Live and Die in Dixie.
Cleaning lady and sleuth Callahan Garrity is hired to search an Atlanta antique dealer’s mansion for a missing Civil War diary, but finds she finds a dead body instead.

Bob Truluck, Street Level.
Florida P.I. Duncan Sloan is hired to track down a teenage girl who was kidnapped and impregnated with the sperm of a wealthy tycoon’s gay son by a conman intent on blackmail.

Judith Van Gieson, North of the Border.
Albuquerque attorney Neil Hamel is asked to go to Mexico by her former boss and lover, who is receiving threats about the Mexican baby he and his wife adopted four years ago.

Valerie Wilson Wesley, Where Evil Sleeps.
P.I. Tamara Hayle takes a vacation to Jamaica, where a night on the town with a trio of fellow tourists ends in murder.

Randy Wayne White, Sanibel Flats.
Marine biologist Doc Ford finds his quiet life in his Sanibel Island stilt house interrupted by the murder of the island's most disliked resident.

Charles Willeford, Miami Blues.
Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley is determined to track down the couple who gave him a brutal beating and robbed him of his badge and his gun.


Adventure

David Ball, Empires of Sand.
In the late 19th century, two cousins find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict between the French and the Tuareg in the harsh Saharan sands of North Africa.

Stella Cameron, Key West.
Tormented by nightmarish flashbacks, a woman who is convinced that the events that killed her husband and caused her to lose her unborn child were not accidental returns to Key West to find the truth.

Stephen Coonts, Cuba.
As Castro lies near death, Admiral Jake Grafton and his carrier fleet off Guantanamo Bay must stop a plot by one of the Cuban leader’s aides to use a biological weapon against an American city.

Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe’s Tiger.
In 1799, Private Richard Sharpe poses as a deserter to penetrate the Indian city of Seringapatam—the stronghold of the ruthless Tippoo of Mysore—in order to contact a Scottish spy being held prisoner there.

Clive Cussler, Sahara.
Dirk Pitt, intrepid adventurer and master explorer, searches the Sahara for the deadly toxin that is killing marine life world wide.

Len Deighton, City of Gold.
When the intelligence officer escorting him to Cairo to be court-martialed dies of a heart attack, a British corporal takes on his identity and finds himself searching for the spy who is revealing
top-secret data to Rommel and his German forces.

Jack Du Brul, Vulcan’s Forge.
Forty years ago, the Soviets detonated an A-bomb in the Pacific Ocean to extract a powerful fuel from an underwater volcano; now, the volcano has surfaced and the Russians, Koreans & Americans vie for control.

Simon Gandolfi, White Sands.
A retired British agent living in the Bahamas agrees to help protect a boy who witnessed the crash of a plane carrying drugs from the dealers who will stop at nothing to retrieve their cargo.

Lisa Gardner, The Killing Hour.
An FBI trainee and a cop join forces to track a killer who abandons his victims alive in remote locations during heat waves.

Dorothy Gilman, Caravan.
While traveling with a caravan across the Sahara in 1914, a lady’s husband is murdered by Tuareg tribesmen but she escapes disguised as a boy and embarks on the adventure of her life.

John Gobbell, The Last Lieutenant.
After the fall of Corregidor, a daring Navy lieutenant leads his men to safety and prevents a Nazi mole from revealing Allied plans for the Japanese at Midway.

Winston Graham, Tremor.
A motley cast of characters in search of adventure, romance, and refuge descend on the elegant Hotel Saada in Agadir, Morocco, but their lives are suddenly jeopardized by a devastating earthquake.

Frank Herbert, Dune.
During a power struggle on the desert planet Arrakis, Paul Atreides is cast out into the harsh environment to die, but he meets a tribe of nomads who help him reclaim what is rightfully his.

James W. Hall, Bones of Coral.
A paramedic returns to his roots in Key West to investigate the suspicious suicide of his father and a possible link to an environmental scam.

Carl Hiaasen, Tourist Season.
A P.I. finds himself enmeshed in a bizarre series of murders perpetrated by a radical group using carnivorous reptiles, both living and rubber, as weapons in an attempt to free Florida from
overdevelopment.

Richard Hoyt, Darwin’s Secret.
A surreal trip down the exotic Amazon in search of gold and a magic icon turns up a lost Utopian colony of Europeans, a group of god-doctors who heal with leeches, and other unnerving surprises.

John Katzenbach, In the Heat of the Summer.
A Miami reporter writes a story about the murder of a teenage girl and then starts receiving taunting phone calls from the killer about his plans for his next victim.

Alexander Kent, Passage to Mutiny.
Sailing from Sydney to the islands of the Great South Sea, Captain Richard Bolitho faces many hazards including fickle winds, pirates, savage islanders, and the specter of the recent mutiny on Captain Bligh’s Bounty.

Rachel Lee, After I Dream.
A former SEAL who lost his nerve after a near-fatal diving accident agrees to help a woman whose brother is accused of murdering the crew of a boat found adrift off the Florida Keys.

Glenn Meade, The Sands of Sakkara.
A trio of archaeologists who worked together on a dig in Egypt find themselves on opposite sides of a plot to assassinate Winston Churchill & Franklin Roosevelt.

Barbara Parker, Suspicion of Innocence.
A smart and successful Miami attorney finds her life beginning to fall apart after her wild younger sister’s body is discovered in the Everglades.

David Poyer, China Sea.
A U.S. Navy captain whose ship is sent to the South China Sea to combat pirates must deal with a mysterious lack of communication from the Navy, supply & fuel shortages, mechanical breakdowns, a mutinous crew and a serial killer on the loose.

Doug Preston & Lincoln Child, Thunderhead.
Sixteen years after her father disappeared in the deserts of Utah’s red-rock canyons, an archaeologist follows his trail hoping to find the Anasazi’s fabled Lost City of Gold.

Ann Prospero, Almost Night.
In this thriller set against a richly evoked Miami setting, a detective heads a squad conducting a manhunt for a serial killer who preys on lonely professional women.

Patricia Rice, Volcano.
A woman who arrives in a tropical paradise on business is stunned when she's accused of drug smuggling and then rescued by a stranger claiming to be her husband.

Nora Roberts, The Reef.
A marine archaeologist reunites with the salvager she once loved in order to locate an amulet reputed to be cursed from the waters off St. Kitts & Nevis.

Tom Savage, Precipice.
A seemingly perfect family living in a Caribbean island paradise are drawn into a nightmare of deceit and violence after the arrival of a mysterious young woman linked to an old family secret.

Laurence Shames, Virgin Heat.
A mobster’s daughter heads to Key West in search of the man she loves — a stool pigeon who betrayed her father and fled into the Witness Protection Program.

Wilbur Smith, The Seventh Scroll.
Discovering the possible whereabouts of the lavish crypt belonging to the Pharaoh Mamose, two Egyptologists begin a desperate race against greedy assassins.

Les Standiford, Done Deal.
When his wife is run off a bridge and presumed drowned in a suspicious accident, a Florida real-estate agent becomes convinced that she was murdered by a man who plans to profit from a new baseball franchise.

Chris Stewart, The Third Consequence.
When Iran cuts off the United States from Saudi Arabia’s oil supply, an Air Force pilot is sent to the Gulf to help escort tankers but soon discovers a traitor in the ranks.

Lucy Wadham, Lost.
During a vacation on the sun-drenched island of Corsica, a woman’s son is kidnapped by a renegade member of the FNL, and as she races to find him before he’s killed, she is caught in a treacherous web of constantly shifting alliances and loyalties.



Nonfiction

Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country.
A deliciously funny, fact-filled and adventurous account of veteran travel writer Bryson’s tour of Australia, where the wildlife is so dangerous even the seashells may attack you and where the countryside is so huge and remote that a Japanese cult may have set off an explosion entirely unnoticed in the western desert.

David Darlington, The Mojave.
A natural and human history of the ruggedly beautiful, sere landscape that has been ravaged by the mining industry and the military, a dumping ground for everything from murder victims to radioactive waste, a proving ground for test pilots and dirt bike racers, and home to numerous secret drug laboratories.

Tony Horwitz, Baghdad without a Map.
The wryly comic yet insightful observations of a journalist’s travels through the Middle East before the Gulf War, as he chews qat with Yemenis, plays soccer with Sudanese refugees, and attends the Ayatollah’s funeral.

William Langewiesche, Sahara Unveiled.
In this account of his trek across the world's most vast and forbidding desert from Algiers to Dakar, the author “conjures the heat so palpably that readers may feel threatened, overwhelmed, ready to swoon.” (Kirkus)

John Man, Gobi: Tracking the Desert.
When the fall of communism made the Gobi Desert accessible to outsiders for the first time in 50 years, journalist John Man traveled across its vast, varied, breathtaking expanse by truck.