Ships May 1, 2026
Includes:
✔ Autographed copy
✔ Exclusive souvenir Bum Farto matchbook
Limited presale quantities.
For 50 years, Key West has asked the same question:
Where is Bum Farto?
Wrong question.
Before you can solve the disappearance, you have to understand the man, and the man was far more dangerous than the legend.
In this explosive first volume, David L. Sloan delivers the most complete, documented, and disturbing portrait ever assembled of Key West’s missing fire chief, from his birth to the day he vanished.
This is not recycled folklore. Inside you’ll uncover:
• How he got the name “Bum”
• Why Bum Farto wore red and what it signaled
• The truth behind his drug connections
• Bum’s meteoric rise to power inside the Fire Department
• The childhood trauma that shaped his psychology
• Bank robberies in a town riddled with suspicious fires
• The Tampa Mafia connection
• The smuggling network targeted in Operation Conch
• Newly uncovered evidence never published before
• Rare photographs and archival documents
• The real cast of characters who surrounded him, and helped seal his fate
Bum Farto was much more than the caricature you hear tales of today.
He was a power broker in a small island town where fire, money, and organized networks collided.
David L. Sloan IV has spent more than a decade digging through records, chasing leads, and searching for the truth about the man behind Key West’s greatest mystery. What emerges is a portrait that reframes everything you thought you knew about the D.B. Cooper of Key West.
This is Book 1 of a two-part investigation.
Ships May 1, 2026
Includes:
✔ Autographed copy
✔ Exclusive souvenir Bum Farto matchbook
Limited presale quantities.
For 50 years, Key West has asked the same question:
Where is Bum Farto?
Wrong question.
Before you can solve the disappearance, you have to understand the man, and the man was far more dangerous than the legend.
In this explosive first volume, David L. Sloan delivers the most complete, documented, and disturbing portrait ever assembled of Key West’s missing fire chief, from his birth to the day he vanished.
This is not recycled folklore. Inside you’ll uncover:
• How he got the name “Bum”
• Why Bum Farto wore red and what it signaled
• The truth behind his drug connections
• Bum’s meteoric rise to power inside the Fire Department
• The childhood trauma that shaped his psychology
• Bank robberies in a town riddled with suspicious fires
• The Tampa Mafia connection
• The smuggling network targeted in Operation Conch
• Newly uncovered evidence never published before
• Rare photographs and archival documents
• The real cast of characters who surrounded him, and helped seal his fate
Bum Farto was much more than the caricature you hear tales of today.
He was a power broker in a small island town where fire, money, and organized networks collided.
David L. Sloan IV has spent more than a decade digging through records, chasing leads, and searching for the truth about the man behind Key West’s greatest mystery. What emerges is a portrait that reframes everything you thought you knew about the D.B. Cooper of Key West.
This is Book 1 of a two-part investigation.
