Article: BOOKS Decadence, danger, decay under South Florida sun.(Daily Break)

CRUEL POETRY

VICKI HENDRICKS

Serpent's Tail. 312 pp. $14.95.

BY TIMOTHY J. LOCKHART

RENATA, the hooker heroine of Vicki Hendricks' sizzling noir novel "Cruel Poetry," explains her philosophy early on: "If you're gonna be stupid, you gotta be tough." With the loss of half a finger as a constant reminder of her rocky past, Renata is as tough as they come.

But she also thinks she's smart. Only after corpses line up almost as fast as her lovers at the seedy Tropical Moons Hotel in Miami Beach does Renata realize she's not so smart after all.

This beautiful, impulsive and uninhibited redhead talks to a snake - her pet Burmese python, Pepe - and considers ...

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