A couple from the depths of the library and
Fred Willard. Neither of which I've read and both of which were published about twenty years ago.
Whores, hustlers, murder, con games, jailbreaks and a lot more.....my kind of books.
Willard is an American comedian, actor and writer.
Multi-talented obviously, I'm glad he's not prolific as an author. I can't see that he has any more fiction published in the last twenty years, which means I've a good chance of catching up with his work.
* UPDATE - Lee Goldberg a man who knows, informs me that the author of the books is not the actor and comedian of some renown, but a different guy - a journalist from Atlanta.
Apologies for the fake news!
Down on Ponce (1997)
In Atlanta, Georgia, Ponce De Leon Avenue is a street full of whores, hustlers and hiding places. Sam takes against a malign yuppy who offers him money to kill his wife, and takes the money, and warns the wife. When she, the yuppy and the man Sam got to look after his trailer all end up dead, Sam feels in an abstract way that someone ought to pay, and killing people is nowhere near as satisfactory as taking away their money. He assembles a gang--his favourite psychopath, two crippled down-and-outs and a rockabilly undertaker--and poses as the man from the Columbian cartels. And then the plot begins to get seriously complicated...Fred Willard's bleakly funny first novel has a tone of voice as vigorous as its action sequences, a sense of location and milieu as sharp as its plotting. The planning and execution of jailbreaks and hijackings are ingenious and plausible; more unusually, they are carried out in inventive ways which have as much to do with the characters of Willard's charming foul-mouthed criminals as they do with mere practicality. Crime novels come no more hard-boiled than this. --Roz Kaveney
Princess Naughty and the Voodoo Cadillac (2000)
Drummed out of the post-Cold War CIA, Bill Schiller needs a little scratch to ease him into retirement on some warm, remote island. He's already got his stool, filthy rich Atlantan Johnny McClendon who would love nothing better than to prove himself a true patriot. All Schiller needs to do is arrange a couple of simple transfers and blow off a few major players.
It sounds as though there's some wit woven into these stories, Col, and dark wit can really work well in a story. The characters sound interesting, too, and I hope you'll enjoy the books.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margot. I like a splash of wit in my reading.
DeleteCol, I didn't know Fred Willard wrote. This is new to me. I only ever saw him in the hit sitcom EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, a family favourite.
ReplyDeleteNewsflash Prashant - apparently he doesn't! Boo, I was quite disappointed when I found out.
DeleteOh no, how disappointing, I was hoping it would be the actor - loved him in Best of Show! I will wait to hear what you say about the books when you finally get round to them.
ReplyDeleteOh well. I'll have to look up Best of Show, I haven't heard of it.
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