Miami

Miami has been a place that has intrigued me since the days of Miami Vice. Recent shows set there include Burn Notice and Dexter. And it is also the setting of the Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley novels. Joan Didion took a look at the city in the late 80s and then wrote Miami (1987). It is a fascinating look at the city, but mostly through the Cuban exile politics that have taken place there, where John F. Kennedy was the second most hated man after Fidel Castro. So it goes from the effects of the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, to Watergate breaks in, and establishment of Miami as a Third World capital. The book closes by showing how the policies against Cuba were collated and combined with the Reagan administration doctrine of intervention in Central America. As usual Didion's crystalline style permeates the story.