Description: Now in paperback, "Last Train to Paradise" is acclaimed novelist Standiford's 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.
Review Quotes: "A dramatic story . . . and Les Standiford has a good deal of fun with it all."
--Washington Post Book World
"A definitive account of the engineering feat that became known as 'Flagler's Folly'. . . A rousing adventure." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A fascinating and incredibly compelling account . . . I could not put it down." --Donald Trump
"This is the remarkable true-life chronicle of one of America's greatest engineering achievements, and how it was all blown to bits in a few hellish hours. No novelist could have invented such a stunning tale, or such unforgettable characters."
--Carl Hiaasen, author of Basket Case
"Last Train to Paradise is a fast-moving and gripping story about one of the most ambitious and difficult engineering projects of the last century." --Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams
"This is a wonderfully told tale, a strange and compelling story about a strange and compelling part of the world. With sharp, evocative reporting, the book captures an era, the Florida landscape, and the very human dream of doing the impossible."
--Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief
"Last Train to Paradise is an extraordinary achievement, a nonfiction book as exciting and finely written as a first-rate novel, with the narrative drive of a locomotive. . . . Throw in Ernest Hemingway and some of the most dramatic scenes of the chaos of a hurricane ever written and you've got one hell of a spectacular book." --James Hall, author of Blackwater Sound and Under Cover of Daylight
"Only one thing could have stopped entrepreneur Henry Flagler: the most powerful storm ever to strike the United States. Les Standiford has given us a rousing--a deeply sobering--story of this 1935 collision between hubris and hurricane in the Florida Keys." --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
"Last Train to Paradise is a mesmerizing account of Gilded Age titan Henry Flagler and his extraordinary dream to build a railroad across the sea. Henry Flagler's quest to build an overseas railroad has all the elements of a classic Greek tragedy, and Les Standiford has captured both the man and his times with pitch perfect grace."
--Connie May Fowler, author of Before Women Had Wings and When Katie Wakes