 Recorded Books Presents A Griot Audio Production of Pepperfish Keys by Darryl Wimberley. This unabridged recording is narrated by Dion Graham and directed by Jane Cramer. This book is copyrighted 2007 by Darryl Wimberley. This recording is copyrighted 2008 by Recorded Books, producer and publisher of Griot Audio, celebrating the best in contemporary African American fiction and non-fiction. There are still towns in Florida, like Pepperfish Keys, where people can't accept that a black man could rise to a high position in the state police. But Barrett Reigns has done it. His father may have been a moneyless fisherman, enriching his white employer. But things have changed. Kinda. And now, Pepperfish Keys. Chapter 1 A stretched limousine sweltered in an Indian summer. A modern carriage on a rip of asphalt that terminated at a ragged border of grass and water. It would be inaccurate to call the place a beach. There was no strand to separate the sawgrass from the bay beyond, no boundary of sand between the semi-earth and Pepperfish Keys. Past the Keys beckoned the Gulf of Mexico, that place of pirates and privateers whose waters have for eons lipped along the literal of Florida's northwestern coast. A molten sun swelled over that wide bowl. It was only mid-afternoon, and already a flight of pelicans glided off open water, seeking an early roost ashore. Atop a cedar tree, perhaps, or perhaps one of the beetle-ravaged pines that rose as solitary sentinels from the sawgrass's damp pasture. I love this scene. A ponytailed Latino jabbed a remote at the DVD player installed in the cushion of his limo's rear-facing seat. You seen it twice for God's sake? This protest from the 20-something straddled over her partner. Her belly rippled like a gymnast's beneath a halter top. Her legs strained tight against tie-died shorts, a mane of chestnut hair. Just a minute, baby. This spot. The heir apparent to Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe faced his nemesis on the limo's compact screen. You tell them about me? You tell them anything at all? I'll pickle your fuckin' tongue. Pickle his tongue, you hear that? I heard. I'll pickle it. I'll slice it. I'll feed it to your kids in a f- Sample complete. Ready to continue?