The Last Train to Key West
During the Great Depression the U.S. workforce was flooded with idled veterans, but jobs vanished along with World War I. Unemployment was near 20% in 1935. According to some estimates, that’s about what we have now, but our crisis is new. In 1935, some men had been out of work since the stock market crashed in 1929, and the depression was still deepening.
Key West, romanticized by the likes of Hemingway, flourishes anyway. The island-hopping Overseas Railroad delivers affluent vacationers – along with people escaping their past – to the end of the line. Pregnant and fed up with her abusive husband, Key West waitress Helen Berner is more desperate to escape her present. Impulsive Elizabeth Preston seeks her missing brother, a veteran whose last letter was mailed from Key West. And honeymooner Mirta Perez arrives by ferry from Cuba, wondering if she has dodged poverty through an arranged marriage, or faces peril via her husband’s shady business.
Best-selling author Chanel Cleeton brings these women together in her enjoyable novel. They are also united by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935; a monster storm which tests each to their limit. I was surprised that The Last Train to Key West downplays the hurricane (the strongest recorded in the Atlantic), but Helen, Mirta, and Elizabeth each has a male protector to help see her through the storm and provide happy endings. With three protagonists, Ms. Cleeton switches story lines more often than I like, but deftly knits them together at the end. The Last Train to Key West is a fine, suspenseful romance for a beach vacation (but keep an eye on the weather forecast).
