β Scribed by Don Winslow
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Elmore Leonard meets Professor Higgins in Winslow's (Way Down on the High Lonely) latest high-spirited Neal Carey caper. Neal agrees to hide big-haired Brooklyn gal Polly Paget from the media and other predators after she publicly accuses her former boss and lover, family-TV personality Jack Landis, of rape. Once again in the hire of the secret Friends of the Family organization, Neal and his lady love, Karen Hawley, agree to smooth some of Polly's rough edges before she reenters the public eye. Landis, his prim co-star/wife Candy and their investors (some of whom are less than legitimate), who are poised to expand the Landis communications empire into a family theme park, are leery of ugly publicity. The missing woman is hunted by assorted parties: a magazine publisher out for a high-profile centerfold sends a drunken investigator after her; the Landises hire a former government agent to find her; and someone else has called upon the services of a coolly competent hired gun. After assorted cast members converge at the Carey home in Austin, Tex., Neal, Karen, Polly and an unexpected new friend run for cover. Winslow's dialogue zips along as smartly as the action. If Polly becomes less interesting as her diction improves, the rewards of this tale, whose lowlife characters rival the cast of Guys and Dolls, remain undiminished.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A change of pace for Neal Carey, who's been petulantly hunting down people for the Friends of the Family (Way Down on the High Lonely, 1993, etc.). This time, Joe Graham and the other Friends want him to keep much-hunted Polly Paget under wraps in the Nevada desert while he cleans up her grammar, her diction, and her act before she goes on network TV to denounce her boss, Jackson Landis, founder and majority owner of the Family Cable Network, as a rapist. The real change, though, is in the tone of this caper. Neal's intellectually elitist mysticism wouldn't cut it as Polly's pursued by (1) a former FBI agent working for Jackson Landis and Candy, his wife and partner in a new theme park to be called (of course) Candyland; (2) a porn prince eager to sign Polly to a centerfold contract; (3) an unsavory developer who whitewashes his silent partnership in Candyland by going to confession every day; and (4) a hit man whose obsessive professionalism can't hide the fact that he keeps missing the target. So Winslow wisely shuffles Neal offstage for long, foolishly amusing stretches while Candy tracks down Polly and bonds with her; the senior Friends, learning that the New Orleans mob is moving in on Jack's empire, tiptoe away from backing Polly; and all parties concerned scramble to come out on top in a final tarantella worthy of Donald E. Westlake. Not as distinctive as Neal's earlier adventures, but the broadest, loosest, funniest of them all. It's great to see Neal taking a break from his M.A. thesis on that stinker Smollett without getting all hung up for a change. -- Copyright Β©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
A Mystery
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Don Winslow (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen crime and mystery novels as well as short stories and film screenplays. A Cool Breeze on the Underground, Winslow's debut and the first novel in his popular Neal Carey series, was nominated for an Edgar Award. Before becoming
The popular mystery from _New York Times_ bestselling author Don Winslowβnow available as an ebook. Book four of the Neal Carey mystery series: Home at last, itinerant PI Neal Carey has trouble track him down for a change in the form of a dangerously clueless femme fatale PI Neal Carey has a talent
**Neal Carey has to keep the mob, the FBI, and a major television personality from killing his newest client-- but he's tempted to do the job himself.** Sometime student and ever-reluctant detective Neal Carey would rather be finishing a dull doctoral thesis than staring down the nose of a loaded g