Tampa resident Thad Diaz was a Tampa Bay firefighter who retired in 2021 after 25 years of service. Before his retirement he released some sci-fi and fantasy material under the name T. Allen Diaz.
“Tampa Heat” is his first hard-boiled mystery novel. Now that he’s retired he feels free to write Tampa-based detective stories and not be concerned about the effect they might have on his career.
His tales from his Cigar City Case Files are all fictionalized stories based in Tampa. His self-proclaimed mission is to display from a native’s perspective not only Tampa’s beauty but also its gritty underbelly. “Tampa Heat” is the first of what he plans to be a series. The series thus far consists of a prequel, “Temple Terrace Badger Game” and “The Gasparilla Job.”
Not surprisingly, the series’ protagonist is Logan “Lo” Walsh, a Tampa Bay firefighter. Lo has a side job working for his father, who is a bail bondsman. All in all, Lo is a likeable main character who you want to see prevail.
As the book opens, Lo and his dad are looking to pick up a “skip,” i.e., a man who has skipped out on his bond. When they catch up to the young man, his excuse for jumping bail is that he has been set up and is frightened since there are powerful people who want to retaliate against him because of his in-depth knowledge of past Tampa crimes.
Sure! Everybody has an excuse. However, they soon find out he’s telling the truth after he is found stabbed to death in his jail cell, and Lo begins to look into the situation. But then his dad’s business is burned to the ground and his dad is critically injured in the fire after being locked in his office by the assailant.
Now, Lo is on a mission to get to the bottom of things. He starts down a rabbit hole and things continue to get more and more complicated the further he goes. What he uncovers encompasses several decades and implicates several important people in Tampa and the surrounding area. Soon, both Lo and his family are threatened because of his discoveries about a series of fires that had occurred in Tampa 20 years earlier.
Lo’s jobs and his personal life come into play as well as subplots, one of which is his separation from his wife and family largely because to the demands of his job at the fire department.
Keeping track of all the players and everything that may or may not figure into the dilemma at times were hard to keep up with. It kept me perplexed as to what both Lo and I, as the reader, might be missing. Lo managed to keep everything close to his chest until he finally came out with it in the end. By then, it was time to wrap things up since the book had 466 pages.
While the scenes involving firefighting tools and procedures are described in technical detail, Diaz always explained these things very clearly so the reader should never feel left out or confused.
Diaz did a wonderful job of describing Tampa. I am not a Tampa native but I felt I could picture every corner, street or turn he described.
Overall, I found “Tampa Heat” to be an excellent with an enjoyable storyline that was an easy read.
David Beckwith is the author of “Snakebit.”