About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

FOOL'S PARADISE
by Steve Brewer
University of New Mexico Press, October 2003
182 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 0826331246


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

John Ray Mooney is fresh out of Folsom Prison after a stretch of 3 years and 5 months for car theft. He discovers that the $5,000 he borrowed from Big Odie and The Sons of Satan has miraculously grown to $20,000 during his enforced absence. Yeah, in hindsight, borrowing any amount of money from a biker gang wasn't particularly intelligent, but what's a guy to do when his brains have migrated about 3 feet south due to the ample charms of exotic dancer Angel Flesch? Anyway, Big Odie is nothing if not generous. He gives John Ray a whole week to pay off the debt.

Now, when you're stuck with an urgent need for $20K, a bank robbery is your only resort. And your only resort in which to carry out a bank robbery is Coronado - a sleepy, old-fashioned tourist town where both bank heists and Big Odie are unknown. So there you are. You're John Ray Mooney and you're struggling to write your demand for cash on the deposit slip, in a bank in which you have no account, when who should stroll in looking like an extra from Miami Vice but the son of the Sultan of Yip. To be precise, His Highness Prince Seri Hassan Bandapanang bin Mohammed - Bennie to his friends. John Ray can spot an attractive proposition when it crosses his path.

Steve Brewer excels at creating quirky but very endearing characters, and FOOL'S PARADISE is no exception. As well as John Ray and the rather charming prince who, needless to say, is not all he seems, FOOL'S PARADISE has a wonderful cast of characters including a gorgeous divorcee with cash flow problems, a musclebound fireman who feels no pain, and a bank security guard who dislikes his job. Not to mention the elite and highly trained Royal Guard of the Sultanate of Yip who have been sent to the US to bring home the jet-setting Prince. I'm rather concerned that I appear to have fallen in love with such a pack of misfits, murderers and assorted

miscreants, but that's always the way with Steve Brewer's books.

The plot romps along with some nifty little twists and turns that I should have seen coming but never did, and the dialogue is breezy and funny. I was left with a huge grin on my face at the end of the book. If you like capers, scams and books which just plain make you laugh then take a trip with Steve Brewer to FOOL'S PARADISE. You'd be a fool to miss it.

Reviewed by Donna Moore, November 2003

This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]