Friday means Friday’s Forgotten
Books hosted by Patti Abbott here. Anyone who really knows me knows I have a
very wide and twisted sense of humor with little tolerance for political correctness. The
Perfect Defective: A Novella by Clark Casey hit that target and delivered from start to
finish. As a result, this book --also available for the Kindle at 99 cents--- is
my recommendation for today.
P. I. Jake Hannigan has a “…square
jaw and skepticism that can’t be bought on Sundays in Blue Law States.”
(Page 5) That means he has a fondness for alcohol and will indulge that
fondness whenever the mood strikes including his own office. That is where Professor
Durgen found him on a certain Monday morning.
Professor Durgen teaches writing at
a community college when he isn’t working on his novel. Unfortunately,
his novel has been stalled for over two months. He has a huge problem. He’s
lost his talent, his creative juice. He’s tried drinking heavily and all that
has done is made him write bad poetry. He needs his talent back as soon as
possible and wants P. I. Jack Hannigan to find it for him. For twenty bucks a
day and all the Johnnie Walker Blue Label he can drink, Hannigan will take the
case.
Of course when you are paid by all
the booze you can drink, you don’t want to solve the case too fast. It
helps if you get another case you can also stall a bit. The case here that fits
the bill is his next client. A sexy cheerleader wants a dead man killed.
The result is a fast and often laugh
out loud satirical novella that has the potential to offend just about anyone.
Often crude in terms of language between characters, descriptions of characters
(attributes of cheerleaders being a major discussion point), and scene setting,
the result is an often bluntly coarse read. It is also often funny, especially
when Hannigan contacts the agent and discovers that there is a lot of truth to
what disgruntled writers have claimed for years.
A twisted and perverted read that
will appeal to those with a wide dark streak of humor in them, this fun book is
not for everyone. It will especially appeal to writers in general and mystery
fans in particular as it takes shots at all the expected conventions of the
genre. It most definitely is a change of pace from the serious noir mysteries
that seem to be increasingly common these days. Twisted funny and flat out
warped, this 56 page read is just fun as it punches out all the detective novel
stereotypes one by one while managing to slap the reader upside the head with
twist after twist after twist.
The Perfect Defective: A Novella
Clark Casey
Some Dead Trees Press (a less
idealistic division of No Dead Trees Press)
2011
ISBN# 978-1466284128
Paperback (also e-book via Kindle)
56 Pages
$7.89
Material supplied by the author in
exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2011, 2014
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