Opening paragraphs................

"Van Harder came aboard The Busted Flush on a hot bright
May morning.  My houseboat was at her home mooring, Slip
F-18 at Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale.  I was in the midst of
one of my periodic spasms of energy born of guilt.  You go
along thinking you are properly maintaining your houseboat
and your runabout, going by the book, keeping a watchful
eye on the lines, the bilge, the brightwork, and all.  But the
book was written for more merciful climates than Florida,
once described to the King of Spain by DeSoto as "an
uninhabitable sandspit," even though at the time it was
inhabited by quite a lot of Indians."

-John MacDonald, The Empty Copper Sea