“This compellingly readable book is all the more remarkable for its profound erudition.”

             —Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Emeritus Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh, author of A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA (2022), The Nazi Spy Ring in America (2020), and The FBI: A History (2007).

Bareford’s outstanding debut integrates a riveting story of political intrigue into the genuine historical events and social tensions of post-WWI America. Fred Dunn is a traumatized WWI vet working in a government Veteran’s Work Project camp in the Florida Keys when a chance encounter with Cornell students Cindy and Ella embroils him in a dangerous covert political mission to infiltrate a bank vault in Havana. When things don’t go as planned, they must improvise—forcing Fred and Ella on a dangerous journey they must complete before a major hurricane hits the region. As they try to outrun both the storm and their pursuers, they discover that their connection may not be as accidental as they once believed.

Bareford meticulously captures interwar America, immersing readers not just by infusing the pages with an abundance of era-specific cultural references (Betty Boop, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” Clark Gable) but also by making real contemporary events foundational to the story—the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane and the Veterans Work Program camps are historically accurate. Many characters are also drawn from Cuba’s history—Ernest Hemingway, Cuban General Gerardo Machado, and gangster Meyer Lansky all figure in, along with many other public figures and private citizens, each identified at the back of the book.

While the main characters are fictionalized composites, they blend seamlessly into the book’s authentic people, places and events, their network of liaisons and motivations adding drama and passion to their nonfictional backdrop. Fast-paced and often racy, with snappy dialogue laced with wry humor, Veterans Key never shies away from the tragedies of the time. Visceral flashbacks of the Great War, brutal political violence, and the heartrending death and destruction that the hurricane inflicts may disturb some readers. Bareford surfaces the human experience within these massive, intractable events, offering an exciting window into the past.

Takeaway: Exciting, immersive political thriller that blends historical fact and fiction .

Comparable Titles: Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth.

—BookLife Reviews

“A novel based on history that's both important and entertaining.”

Veteran's Key is a terrific read, a thoroughly engaging novel written with a nod to the literature of the 1930s in which it is set. Based on real events and people, this one has it all: colorful, well-developed characters, disguised identities, espionage, sex, and ultimate-stake risks. The plot moves along at an ever-accelerating rate, alternately amusing and tension packed. Its arch heroine is a badass teenager who packs, always knows how to handle herself, succeed in her mission and come out alive, even when forced to become a double agent.
The book also gave me a much clearer insight into how war trauma leads to PTSD, and what it's like to be in the midst of a lethal hurricane, than any movie ever has. The author, a veteran himself, has an unmistakable appreciation of veterans. In fact, his legal battle to secure memorials for them is what led him to write the novel. Read it!”

-Ruth Cashin Monsell, Author of Frances Perkins, Champion of American Workers (2024)

“Veterans Key opens in 1935 as hundreds of derelict vets of the Great War are working in ramshackle government relief camps bridging a gap in the Overseas Highway connecting Key West with the mainland.

One hot August morning, two striking co-eds, Cindy and Ella, step off a train in Islamorada to be greeted with the crude cat-calls of beery veterans. What happens next is unexpected. Cindy singles out Fred, a soft-spoken, muscular vet drinking a Coke. He offers her a sip. She accepts, flirts, and invites him to her hotel in Key West for an amorous rendezvous.

Eager to meet Cindy, Fred has no inkling that he has in fact been chosen to participate in a carefully planned bank robbery in Havana, the results of which will have enormous consequences for everyone involved. But this pivotal event is barely an introduction to the riveting mystery that is Veterans Key, a serio-comic novel with moments of pathos, terror, and more twists and turns than a cottonmouth snake.

Cindy’s brother Emilio is a Cuban revolutionary intent on avenging his torture by deposed General Machado’s secret police. Cindy’s father is a former official of the target bank and his knowledge of the contents of a certain safe deposit box is critical for the heist. Fred’s role is to play the patsy in the robbery and the investigation that will surely follow.

As the story unfolds, the characters’ various involvements with good guys and thugs, including the Cuban police, American FBI agents, Communists, Nazi spies, and mobsters from the Meyer Lansky gang make for a rich mix of deceptions, lies and misdirection. Ultimately Ella may be the most complex figure of them all, a 17-year-old German Jew living an impossible balancing act.

Bareford creates a vivid and compelling adventure by weaving the historical with the plausible.

The disdain of camp officials for the men in their charge and the devastating aftermath of the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane adds gravitas to the deceptively light tone throughout much of the book.

Veterans Key evokes other distinctive novels including The Horse’s Mouth and A Confederacy of Dunces, not for their story lines but for the originality of their thinking. Readers may appreciate the nods to Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. There is no “predictable” here, only the sheer joy of an original work that commands your attention on its own terms. Highly recommended!”

“A wry, dark, and pistol-packing story.

Veterans Key is an espionage thriller! Set during the depression era of mid-1930s in the Florida Keys, veteran Fred Dunn, working in a government relief camp, gets invited by sassy 21-year-old Cindy for a weekend in Havana. Fred’s expectation run high which are mightily met, but he gets more than he bargained for. Cindy soon introduces him to her fellow Cornell co-ed, Ella Kaufmann, who just happens to pack a semi-automatic, strapped to her thigh, and before you know it, Fred has become the fall guy for a bank heist in Cuba. From page to quick turning page, intrigue is in full force. Spies are everywhere, Commies, Nazis and mobsters, all ably dispatched by Ella’s 9mm Walther pistol. The action becomes even more suspenseful as the notorious Florida Keys hurricane of 1935 approaches, unforgettably described by the author. What makes this book especially enjoyable and noteworthy is that it is steeped in historical fact and the author is especially sensitive to the plight of WWI veterans in America. I highly recommend this book, but spoiler alert! Veterans Key is not for the prudish, as erotic scenes steam off the pages. What I do hope and expect is that author Richard Bareford follows the journey of the indomitable Ella Kaufmann to her native Germany with another novel.”

      Review by R.w. Meek, award winning author of The Dream Collector (2023)

Kirkus Reviews

In Bareford’s thriller, a haunted World War I veteran embarks on a dangerous journey involving crime and passion in Cuba and the Florida Keys.

The year is 1935, and ex-U.S. Army soldier Fred Dunn is scraping out a living cutting keystone in Florida with a 20-man crew as part of the Veterans Work Program. His life abruptly changes course when he meets an attractive young woman named Cindy Rattigan and her best friend, Ella Kaufmann, at a train platform; Cindy quickly seduces Fred, and the two women recruit him for a bank heist in Cuba, led by suave Emilio Ruiz. Things go sideways when a bomb destroys the bank immediately after the theft, as part of a suspected Communist terrorist attack, and Fred is questioned by the Havana police. As he navigates his new role in a criminal underworld, he grapples with lingering PTSD and a shocking discovery about one of his female companions. Meanwhile, an approaching hurricane may destroy everything—and everyone—that Fred cares about. In an author’s note, Bareford tells of how his main characters were largely based on real-life historical figures, but they’re also clearly inspired by noir. However, the dialogue—which often runs for pages at time with only a sentence or two of narration to break things up—comes across as excessively mannered: “My friend Cindy took me along on this overnighter to Havana, so she and her sugar daddy could casino hop and rumba till the cows come home at the Tropicana.” As a result, several characters, such as femme fatale Cindy, come across as little more than caricatures, resulting in a lack of emotional depth. That said, Bareford skillfully weaves in real history about such things as veterans’ camps and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, and he expounds upon them in engaging notes at the end that give the eventful plot a pleasing sense of real-world consequence.

A crime novel with compelling historical details that gets bogged down by over-the-top characters and dialogue.

Author’s response: I chose to post this review even though I could have buried it ( you can do that with paid reviews). I did so for two reasons: to show that I don’t cherry-pick my reviews, and to rebut the criticism. The reviewer objects to uninterrupted dialogue. Fine, but that’s my style. I prefer conversations that continue without pause, allowing the characters’ words alone to set the tone. Indeed, some of Hemingway’s go for pages without a break for stage directions. And I cite “To Have and Have Not” as an inspiration. The one example the reviewer gives is clearly an attempt to con a hoodlum, using flippant language to conceal a predatory intent. As for ‘over-the-top’ (interestingly, a fraught WWI command), I want my characters to act realistically under extreme conditions. Very extreme.