Sun Struck: 16 Infamous Murders in the Sunshine State

Great short vignettes of Florida murders. The author tries to tie in the notoriety of the murders to the Florida culture but the book was good enough not to need the tie-in.

The Waters brothers have penned another true crime winner in Sun Struck. Following Outgunned, which was set in the Wild West and Depression era, the Waters turn to their home state of Florida and the sixteen murders they describe makes the James Gang and Daltons seem civilized by comparison. Some of the stories are well known. The Jessica Marie Lunsford and Carla Brucia murders garnered national attention. More striking are the lesser-known cases. Allen Lee Davis, the pedophile and murderer, whose gargantuan weight caused the Florida to create a new electric chair to accommodate his bulky frame is a case in point. Some are sad, as the case of the English grandmother who fell in love with death row inmate Ronald Clark over the internet and was hooked into a hair-brained scheme to break five of the state's most violent monsters out of the state prison at Raiford. Harking back to Robert's first book, The Best Defense, is the story of Steven Robey, a short, scrawny "victim" whose "Right to Carry" card and .45 put a violent offender on death row. Each chapter ends with a synopsis of the factors that made Florida an ideal environment for the offender or offenders. This is an excellent book. Well-researched and well written, it is a reminder that even paradise had its snakes.