Rating: 
Summary: Makes you want to go (and stay) in Key West and explore!
Review: The Mango Opera is a must for anyone who has aspirations to or has traveled to Key West, Florida. This book comes to life with mental pictures if you have visited the very establishments and streets mentioned in the adventures of Alex Rutledge. The essence of the culture of promiscuity, alcohol, and divergent thinking of Key West is painted well in this book. It is a soft, murder-mystery and an easy read. I especially recommend this as a vacation book or an airplane ride book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tiresome. Should be accompanied by a street map of Key West!
Review: This book rates highly on my boring list and should have been accompanied by a street map of Key West! Practically every move that's made is a left, a right, or down White street, Flagler or some other stretch of macadam. Today is September 14, and last night I finished this Florida mystery novel after stuttering through it for over a month. This kind of novel should be a breeze, but for me the reading turned out to be very tiresome. It is Corcoran's first novel, and the book was duly hyped in the author's home town, namely Lakeland, Florida. However, I notice the book is on sale in Britain too, though I doubt whether it will gain much popularity there. Women are murdered in and around Key West. They are all ex-girlfriends of crime site photographer Alex Rutledge, the main character. The book concentrates on his conquests while he and the police think and talk about who was responsible. There's not much action. An therein lies the mistake, the author tries too hard to let the reader know he is more than familiar with Key West, turning out detail after detail, such as overdoing the lefts and rights of the streets as Rutledge rushes around. There's a confusing cast of characters too, some of whom seem to go under numerous names. Because of these factors the novel drags terribly. While in itself the writing is competent enough it is pedestrian and the humour often falls flat. No, I did not think this was a good novel, but I understand the author is writing another Alex Rutledge novel and I trust this time he will have learnt the importance of pace in his chosen genre.
Rating:
Summary: Living the Life
Review: This book was tough to put down. I read it in two days! I liked the character development and the mental pictures Corcoran's words evoked. As we are near the same age, most of his examples resonated with me. I have been to Key West several times and he makes me want to get there again soon. He shares with me the point of view of the resident and I liked that. I found it hard to believe this was his first book. Very nice job and I look forward to reading more of him.
Rating:
Summary: Living the Life
Review: This book was tough to put down. I read it in two days! I liked the character development and the mental pictures Corcoran's words evoked. As we are near the same age, most of his examples resonated with me. I have been to Key West several times and he makes me want to get there again soon. He shares with me the point of view of the resident and I liked that. I found it hard to believe this was his first book. Very nice job and I look forward to reading more of him.
Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Alliance Between Intellect and the Flesh
Review: This classic mystery makes me want to feel the spray of warm bay water on my face and the sun on my back as I ride around the streets of Key West waving to Alex and his pals at the Raw Bar. I want to lay in bed at night and feel the warm breeze cool me after an evening of revels at the Pier House. Tom Corcoran's Mango Opera makes me want to sing to his talent for making this small piece of the world as real to me as a languorous sweet body on mine and as frightening as the other side of a tormenting brain that never rests until the questions are answered. You won't put this book down until it is finished; all questions answered before flesh can be renewed.
Rating: 
Summary: This opera didn't sing to me
Review: This first novel is a strained, clumsily-plotted attempt at an entry in the Florida crime novel genre. The main character is a cipher, even though he narrates the book; the mystery is awkwardly described and resolved (several key climaxes take place off stage). The map-like descriptions of the geography of Key West are boring and intrusive. Reading the book was like trying to run through a lake of molasses.
Rating: 
Summary: not just another Key West novel
Review: Tom Corcoran has come up with a new and fresh hero with a different career. As a forensic photographer Rutledge has access to all the crime scenes he cares to see. But now he finds that they have a direct connection to him being that they are old lovers. That starts him to wondering if and why someone would be slaying people from his past. So naturally he needs to find out the answers. In all I think I would recommend this novel to all the Fla. Key mystery buffs.
Rating:
Summary: MangoMania!
Review: Tom Corcoran's debut novel adds to the lengthening shelf of mysteries and suspense stories based in Key West. John Leslie, James W. Hall, and Laurence Shames, to name just a few, have previously weighed in with lean, taut, evocative tales sited on the Floridian archipelago. How does Corcoran fare in such formidable company? This reader thinks he holds his own and, indeed, carves out a comfortable niche for photographer/sleuth Alex Rutledge. The book serves up a stew of Anglos, Cubans, Conchs, and cops -- most of whom are slightly bent -- crisp dialogue, and an ending with as many twists as an angry gator's tail. But its chief appeal lies in its author's fond embrace of a place renowned for its tradition of unconventionality. Corcoran effectively evokes the eccentricity and the heat, both of which seem inescapable in Key West. Whether he will choose to sustain this atmosphere in a second Alex Rutledge venture remains to be seen; but for readers of "tropical ! noir with occasional sunshine," Tom Corcoran's is a welcome new voice in the neighborhood. --Charlie Glide
Rating:
Summary: Hot Air Rising Faster Than a Parasail
Review: What a load of junk, and what a disappointment! I forced myself to finish this mess because I know and love Key West and have read most of the novels set there. But this one! The novel is purely plot driven. It's impossible to like any one of the dozen or so characters, barely even to know them except for stock identifying tics and cliches. This includes the "hero" Alex Rutledge. Much of the action occurs "off-camera," - even the ending is anticlimactic. This writer just can't come! There's no sex, but lots of innuendos. No women are fleshed out. Despite a familiarity driving the Keys and with Key West streets, bars and scenes, there is no authentic idiosyncratic KW life or fun, no surprise, no release, depicted in the novel, nothing whatever to contrast with the dumb and unlikely story. No love of the outdoors is there, nor of the water, the weather, the food, the music. Compare this to some of the great Keys writers - James Hall, MacDonald, Joy Williams, Carl Hiassen, Larry Shames, Randy White - and it's a pathetic attempt to sound tough and knowledgeable. Despite his vaunted job experience, Corcoran seems incapable of telling us anything but facts to flesh out an endless outline. Forget about it.
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