Last Train to Paradise; Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean

New York: Crown Publishers, 2002. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. David Cain (Map). x, [4], 272, [2] pages. Illustrations. Selected Bibliography. Index. Ink inscription, not signed, that from the context is probably not from the author. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Price clipped. Format is approximately 6 inches by 9.5 inches. Les Standiford is a historian and author and has since 1985 been the Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program. Although his most recent works have been narrative non-fiction historical pieces in the style of David McCullough, his John Deal novels set him firmly in the Miami School of Crime Fiction whose progenitors are Charles Willeford and John D. McDonald, and which include Elmore Leonard, Jeff Lindsey, Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall, Paul Levine and Barbara Parker. Standiford has been awarded the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and belongs to the Associated Writing Programs, Mystery Writers of America, and the Writers Guild. The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad-one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean-an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. Many considered the project impossible, but build it they did. The railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as "the Eighth Wonder of the World," until its total destruction in 1935's deadly storm of the century. In Last Train to Paradise, Standiford celebrates this crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition, bringing to life a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature's wrath.