Canada’s Gord Hume has had a long career as an advisor, commentator and speaker on important civic issues such as local government, sustainable urban development and cultural planning.
He wrote books on these topics and served four terms as a London, Ontario city councilor.
Prior to that, he spent many years in broadcasting and journalism, winning “Broadcaster of the Year” twice and founding the largest independent community newspaper in the country.
These days, he lives in a St. Pete Beach condo and writes funny stories about people who don’t exist.
St. Petersburg Publishing House published Hume’s work singapore blingA hilarious novel about a Florida sheriff and his New Yorker girlfriend trying to stop a pair of con men from infiltrating a beach condominium community and making off with a fortune. money.
The police officer’s name is Leroy Perkins (his friends call him Park) and his girlfriend is Samantha Summers. Park’s dog Rosie is part of the inner circle.
singapore bling This is the third book in a series of five books, all with subtitles The Adventures of Samantha and the Sheriff. So far they have only been published in Canada, and although they are popular, they are not widely distributed.
Hume, Samantha and Sheriff Perkins make their US debut in the following productions: Bling from Singapore.
Hume chose this for his American introduction because he believed it summed up the entire world of Samantha and the Sheriff. “I thought it was a fun story and a good representation of what I was trying to do in this book,” he says. “It’s about having a good time and bringing people laughs and a little bit of political satire and sometimes some social commentary.”
Hume is not a resident of Pinellas. He and his partner Carol are snowbirds and spend six months each year on St. Pete Beach. “He had written seven nonfiction books about city building,” he says. “And I needed something new in my life. So I started developing an idea for a novel set in the Gulf. I talked about some of the dive bars I went to, the characters you meet, and the people you see on the street. I was interested in crazy people.”
That was enough to unleash his creativity to the fullest. “About eight years ago, for our first month here, we rented a condo in Madeira Beach,” he explains. “And I was fascinated by observing the social environment around swimming pools.”
In particular, “You see it in almost every condominium along the coast. There’s a group of women running the bloody place.”
Samantha has a condo in a place called Sapphire Blue, where alpha females (as Hume calls them) live. wives) Sit around the pool, drink wine and chat.
Samantha and her friends Kim (newly elected Port Manatee City Council member, whom Samantha is campaigning for) and Samira (an orthopedic surgeon) also hang out at the pool, drinking wine apart from their chatting wives (inside There is a lot of drinking going on). singapore bling), laugh a lot and talk about noble things.
Both sides view the other with skepticism.
Trying to keep my wives’ alcohol consumption to a minimum was like rooting for the New York Mets. It was difficult, provoked ridicule, and had little promise of reward. It was as smart as buying take-out sushi from a convenience store at a gas station.
Sexy blonde Ashley and her mysterious mustachioed husband Massey also waltz in. Soon, they convinced her wives that they could get her in on the ground floor of a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity. The wives, who had no interest in letting their ignorant husbands participate in this windfall, pooled their money and handed over $500,000.
“I was intrigued by the whole cyber currency thing called Bitcoin,” Hume confesses, “but it was clear that there were a lot of people who got scammed and lost their money and everything else. So that gave me a lift.”
Samira is somehow tricked into giving Ashley and Massie $1 million, but it becomes personal for her friend Samantha.
The crooks end up in Singapore, with Samantha and the sheriff in hot pursuit. The story then reaches an adrenaline-stimulating conclusion that combines mystery, joy, and madness.
Hume, who has written five of these books, knows his characters so well that they seem almost real to him. “I remember sitting around the pool here with some of the guys from our condo,” he reports. “Books are very popular here.
“Then one of the women said, ‘Why don’t you just let Samantha say…'” And I immediately said, “Samantha wouldn’t do that.” She didn’t know where it came from, but she knew it wasn’t Samantha. ”
singapore bling The book is available from Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg Press, and Amazon.