Brian Cook's Blog

His friend, A.E. Hotchner, wondered why, with a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize, a comfortable home in Idaho for hunting and fishing, available apartments in New York, Paris and Venice, a fishing boat at ready to fish the Gulf Stream, a devoted spouse, friends all over the world and the adoration of critics, Ernest Hemingway would…

Euphoria and the promise of advance in the wrong direction propelled Kak along the seawall like no force had moved her before. The boat slips in Key West Bight just to the right were aptly named. With every step she took they slipped by as fluidly as the water they organized. The world had changed.…

On April 19, 1922, a 77-year-old Felix Bourg placed a lit stick of dynamite under his hat and strolled down a peaceful street in his hometown of Tiranges, France, until the cylindrical cartridge lying on his scalp detonated. If there’s a punchline to this I don’t know what it is.

Rudy woke with a stiff neck. He checked his phone. A quarter past noon. He’d slept an incredible three and a half hours. Only Kak’s backpack occupied the seat beside him. He stood up to stretch. Ahead, out the port windows, Key West poked its head over the southern horizon. The cat would soon ease…

Periander’s death in the 6th century BC was the first recorded suicide in history. There is so much conflicting information on him that it’s hard to know what kind of man he was or what drove him. We do know he was the Second Tyrant of Corinth, and even that is misleading. In Periander’s time,…

Kak listened to his breathing stretch and deepen. It was a good trick, falling asleep so easily, one she’d never mastered. She got up, let herself out the portside hatch to the deck and walked to the stern rail. Two miles west the Sanibel Lighthouse showed itself high against the island. Not for long. The…

And just in time for winter…. Click the link below to preview the book:

They made the Key West Express ferry with seconds to spare. He watched in silence as the fascinating woman drove them across the Sanibel Causeway, which on the mainland became McGregor Boulevard, which in turn became Summerlin Road. She took the San Carlos Boulevard exit and followed it south to San Carlos Island where she…

Jacques Rigaut, 30 December 1898 – 9 November 1929, was a French surrealist poet. His works frequently featured suicide. At the age of 30 he shot himself in the chest using a ruler, apparently as a site line to ensure the bullet struck his heart. His suicide inspired the book Will O’ the Wisp by…

Kak tucked her feet under the chair, hoping to conceal their bareness from the Sanibel Bean staff, and admired the pocketknife. Open, it was just under five inches long. The rounded brass ends were scalloped and combined with the curved green abalone shell casing to give the tool a pleasing oval shape. She found it…