There’s no rock ’n’ roll and just a few mentions of drugs in Nanci  E. LaGarenne’s new novel, “Cheap Fish,” but it’s all about Montauk and  has sex, salty language, intrigue, and a murder mystery, all aboard a  high-class floating brothel called the Lily Virginia in the middle of  the ocean.

    The characters were not based on real people but may carry the  qualities of some or a few rolled into one, Ms. LaGarenne said. Readers,  though, are having a lot of fun wondering who’s who from the Montauk  bar scene, mostly Liars’ Saloon, which plays a central role in the book.

    Ms. LaGarenne and her husband, James, a retired helicopter pilot  with the New York Police Department, started performing karaoke 12  years ago in and around the hamlet, and in that time Ms. LaGarenne  picked up a lot of information. While her husband worked the microphone,  she worked the crowd, and once people got to know her, their secrets  started spilling out.

    “They knew I wasn’t a gossip so they felt comfortable talking to  me,” she said on Friday at a picnic table at Liars’, a late-night  hangout popular with fishermen and locals. It overlooks Lake Montauk in  the harbor area.

    “Someone told me I should hang up a shingle. You can’t make this  stuff up,” she said of what she has learned in the bar scene.

    When they told her their fish tales and complained about  government regulations threatening the industry, she tucked it all away.  One day, she was sitting with her brother-in-law while he cleaned his  fishing tackle. As he was explaining what a lure is, he playfully asked her if she had ever heard of a floating brothel, and claimed to know the  captain of one. At the time, she was planning on writing a novel about the karaoke scene, but once she heard about that, she knew it was a good  idea for a book.

    Before they started the karaoke, Ms. LaGarenne had  worked as a teacher’s assistant in special education and looked for a job out here in a local school, to no avail. She worked several other jobs in town and ended up employed at an insurance agency. “I was a fish out of  water,” she said.

    Growing up she wrote poetry, mostly about teenage angst. She has  tinkered with other books, none of which have yet been published. She  started writing “Cheap Fish” in 2007. Since she doesn’t feel a connection with computers, she writes in longhand before entering it into one. An agent or publisher couldn’t be found, so she turned to  CreateSpace, a self-publishing arm of Amazon.com. The book hit store  shelves in March, she has already had to restock the Montauk stores.

    The book is about a grizzled but (this being fiction) really  good-looking 65-year-old fisherman known and liked by locals. Starting  to feel his age, he knows he should slow down a bit, but the “pull of  the sea” is like a magnet to him. In Liars’ one night, he meets a guy locals call a “tree hugger." He approaches the scientist  to start a  high-class brothel aboard a boat in international waters off Montauk to  avoid regulation.

    Once the two join forces they realize they need a captain, one who can keep his mouth shut. They choose a “sporty,” a sport fisherman with a fancy boat who visits on weekends. But though the sporty is good at staying quiet about the venture, he isn’t good at keeping his hands off the  merchandise, namely the New York City hookers hired to work the vessel.

    When a physical therapist decides to join the Mermaids, as the  hookers are called, the boat captain initiates her by raping her. He finds out the hard way that he picked on the wrong girl. The mystery  comes in when he is “gutted like a fish” by an unknown killer.

    Ms. LaGarenne credits a Montauk fisherman, Donny D’Albora, in  the acknowledgment section, saying the book wouldn’t have been possible  without his lowdown on commercial fishing. She met with him several  times and taped his stories. Mr. D’Albora’s picture as a youngster on a  dock with a giant tuna even graces the cover. “He taught me the  technical aspects of fishing,” she said.

    After 12 years of spinning tunes, the LaGarennes have retired  from the karaoke gig. They want to spend their weekends at home with each other. She is busy editing another novel that is already written  called “The Refuge,” about domestic violence.

    “Cheap Fish” is available in Montauk at White’s Drug and  Department Store and the Montauk Marine Basin, and at the Gone Local  gallery in Amagansett. It can also be purchased through Amazon.com.

Janis Hewitt   The East Hampton Star

If you love Montauk and a great vibrant read, you will totally enjoy the bitter end, by  East Hampton author Nanci LaGarenne. Ms. LaGarenne weaves a serial  murder mystery into everyday Montauk life. She has a gift with her mastery of detail.  This may be the finest Montauk book ever. It is so accurately  believable in the now, it should be required reading for all east  enders. 

Her  formula of using folks returning to the new Montauk portrays the many  changes of the last decade. These changes fuel the vivid conversations.  The tempo of the dialogue is excellent. With major character names such  as Dragger, Em, Cian, Wyatt, and Luna it is pure Montauk

The signature detail of this book has to be of the murdered men, it is captivating. The method of their murders will mesmerize. The list of suspects keeps you guessing to the very end.

Ms. LaGarenne who has also authored Cheap Fish, and Refuge, brings  her vast knowledge of the Montauk social life into proper focus. Ms.  LaGarenne introduces the reader to a Montauk the locals know and love.  If you live or have lived in Montauk you will recognize the catalyst for  many of the characters that brings this book to life.

The Book, the bitter end, is available in both book form and in Kindle on Amazon. 

TJ Clemente, Hamptons.com

 In her newest book, Nanci LaGarenne develops her story, Refuge,  around a diverse group of women who have left abusive marriages and  childhoods behind and banded together as they create new lives. Rain  Taylor, known as Doc to her therapy clients at the domestic violence  shelter where she volunteers and eventually with her boarders, is the  foundation around which the other women rebuild their lives. By opening  her home, they all call the Brownstone, the group becomes a unique and  eclectic family; both supporting and challenging each other to move  beyond their pasts to rediscover themselves. The four women, who  ultimately joined Doc in the brownstone, came seeking Refuge and in turn  change Doc in a way she could never have imagined. Their journey of  self-discovery, forgiveness, and redemption happens through the power of  friendship and strength of the human spirit, along with a bit of divine  intervention and a whole lot of magic.

The hard reality of the characters’ abusive pasts aren’t easy to  read, yet Nanci tells them in such  a way that the reader becomes  personally involved in each woman’s journey; empathizing through their  trials and struggles as if they were  personal friends. Although the  characters are fictional, the issues these women encounter and survive  are very real. As the stories are unfolding it’s impossible to imagine  how even today these situations continue to plague women in our own  communities and families-one would hope that in our advanced society  these horrific abusive behaviors would be a thing of the past.

The damaged souls of the Brownstone are slowly healed through love  and determination, and a fairytale final cleansing during a magical trip  to Ireland. As Nanci beautifully described their journey, I was brought  back to my own visit to Ireland over ten years ago and left longing to  return. Her beautifully clear descriptive language helps the reader join  the ladies on their scenic adventure that becomes part of their final  process of rediscovery and magical endings..

The Montauk Sun

Nancy  LaGarenne lives in East Hampton with her husband Jimmy. You probably  remember her from Liars Karaoke where she and Jimmy ran the Friday night  sessions for years. Nanci is a contributing editor for some local  Hampton papers, as well as author of Cheap Fish, Refuge, Within a Whisper, and now The Bitter End.

While speaking with Nanci, she told me that her first job was working  at the Sands Motel while dating Jimmy, and she fell in love with  Montauk.  And now she loves writing about it. She also said that the  words of her characters are just that-their words. She tries to write  from the mindset and point of view of each character, so the talking and  complaining is from them, not her.

Cheap Fish, revolves around an unusual friendship that  develops between a ‘Salty’, a ‘Sporty’, and a Tree-hugger who come up  with an idea, and suddenly the oldest profession takes to the waters off  Montauk. Their boat brothel is complete with Mermaids and one of Liars  favorite bartenders as the madam. Real?  Fantasy?  A bit of both???  I  think the genre for this book would be fictional realism. Could it  happen? Yes! But did it??? With her engaging writing style, the author  touches on some ‘Montauk’ issues, without taking it too seriously.

Refuge follows a diverse group of women who have left  abusive marriages and childhoods behind and banded together as they  create new lives with the assistance of their therapist Rain Taylor. The  hard reality of the characters’ abusive pasts isn’t easy to read, yet  Nanci tells them in such a way that the reader becomes personally  involved in each woman’s journey; empathizing through their trials and  struggles as if they were personal friends. Although the characters are  fictional, the issues these women encounter and survive are very real.

Nanci co-authors Within a Whisper, with her husband James and Caroline Upcher. It’s a joint effort about the love story and rescue of their marriage.

The new sequel to Cheap Fish, The Bitter End welcomes back some characters from the first book, as well as  introducing a few new interesting ones. It’s a good idea to read this  first one before her new book, “the bitter end”, so you can get familiar  with the characters and events that continue in the second.

At the end of the first book, set in 2013, the main character Dragger  moves away to the Keys. Well now, six years later he’s returned to find  too many unwelcomed changes in Montauk, and he’s trying to get  reacclimated. While exploring and reconnecting with old friends like  Emma, the madam of the mermaid boat from Cheap Fish, he discovers information that the locals seem to want to keep hidden- a serial murderer in Montauk.

The story is full of Montauk ‘hot spots’ as well as likenesses to  some locals; characters may resemble people that some may think they  know. However, Nanci assured me it’s totally coincidental. Although, she  does use some real names and a number of friends in the development of  her characters.  Some of the ‘real people’ include Miss Melody, Little  Anthony, Nancy Atlas, and Joe Delia.  Some quite familiar include Remy  Malina and Moe Granola from the Granola Market in the harbor, Chief of  Police Johnny Loman, and so many more you may recognize.

As the mystery unfolds, the reader travels with Dragger, Em, Wyatt  [an almost retired NYC cop], and Cian [the twin of Appendage who killed  herself in the last book] throughout Montauk trying to piece together  who’s murdering the men and leaving a ‘signature’ token in a flower box  next to each victim. The adventure takes the reader along throughout the  town visiting spots like John’s Pancakes, Herbs and Whites, to the  dock’s encountering some of the local characters at Liars, Lynn’s,  Westlake, and the Dock. This past summer’s Rock the Lighthouse concert  is even a part of the story.

Who is murdering these men? Could it be one of the ‘mermaids’, a  crazy serial killer targeting Montauk, a disgruntled wife, or  girlfriend???  Nanci draws on the readers interest with a number of red  herrings – leaving you wondering who and why this is happening. You’ll  have to read the story to discover the truth!

For more information on her books, visit her website:  www.nancilagarenne.com.