Florida Palms

by Joe Pan

Genres: Coming of Age; Literary Fiction; Southern; Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

The Outsiders meet Sons of Anarchy in this gripping debut about a group of young men dragged into a drug-running operation.

It’s 2009, the height of the Great Recession. Best friends Eddy and Cueball are fresh out of high school and wild at heart, but the economy is in the dumps. With jobs scarce along Florida’s Space Coast, they join a furniture moving company run by Cueball’s father, a gruff ex-con biker who’s supposedly retired from the fast life. But when a mysterious old boss arrives in town, the payload is switched out, as the young men are coerced into shipping a new designer drug up the East Coast.

What is advertised as a bastion of brotherhood and respect quickly spirals into back alley deals, bloodshed, and an all-out turf war that will test the bounds of love and friendship. Enticed by larger paychecks, and fueled by burgeoning drug habits, the young friends find themselves trapped between rank opportunists, warring gangsters, meth zombies, crazed bikers, and a blowgun-wielding hitman, all vying for a shot of the Big Time.

Soaring, ambitious, and deeply humane, Florida Palms is a gritty coming-of-age story with a big heart and an unflinching vision of the violence and inequities facing forgotten communities. In a relentless race against desperate circumstances, the young friends hope to find the escape velocity needed to get out—or end up facedown in the muck of the unforgiving swamps.

Release date: July 22, 2025

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 480