Torrid zone

Torrid Zone is a magical and steamy collection of tales from the swamps and bayous of the deepest South - the American Gulf Coast. In his first work of fiction, naturalist and travel writer Jonathan Maslow takes readers on a riotous tour of human geography in the land of Mardi Gras and pirates' treasure. Meet Cesar Fuentes, last of the Tampa cigar-factory lectors, the readers who turned the toilsome job of hand-rolling cigars into a dangerous political education. No better than she needs to be, Weekee Wachee's "live mermaid," Stevie Rae, tells her hard-luck story in a Gulf Coast blues bar at…