The Murderer Vine

And my nomination for Best Opening Paragraph I've Read in a Long Time:

Here we sit in Puerto Lagarto—Port Lizard. It's on the old Mosquito Coast. Lizard and Mosquito, the two specialties down here. We're far below Yucatán. Compared this dump Yucatán is civilization. You put on a fresh shirt and thirty seconds later it's sopping wet. No paved streets and only one place with ice. That's the local cantina, La Amargura de Amor. The Bitterness of Love. Narcisco Ramirez owns it. He owns the only refrigerator. He packs it full of beer every morning. I sit in the Bitterness and drink my way from the front to the back of the refrigerator and look at the bay.

It's from The Murderer Vine, by Shepard Rifkin, out in May from Hard Case Crime. Bill Crider posted the original cover over at his place. I think Bill Crider owns every paperback ever published.