The Foursome
A Novel
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
Golf fiction's finest hustler--The Green's Eddie Caminetti--returns in a laugh-out-loud novel featuring a foursome of upwardly mobile golf fanatics who get their just rewards.
Tired of hustling for something as ordinary as money, Eddie, in The Foursome, sets his sights slightly higher than other men's pockets: he goes after their souls. He now presides over Swithen Bairn, an exquisite secret golf course that's a kind of twisted Fantasy Island where the arrogant and pompous find their cherished dreams suddenly transformed into their worst nightmares.
Enter the foursome of the title, four enviably successful businessmen/golf junkies lured to Swithen Bairn by an irresistible offer: "The most memorable golf vacation you ever had or you don't pay." It's been said that you can learn more about people during one round of golf than you can living next door to them for six months, and in one round with Eddie Caminetti these four hapless sinners learn more about themselves than they could have in six years of analysis. By the end of their second match, the dizzying amount of money at stake will be the least of their worries, and "memorable" won't even begin to describe this bizarre vacation.
Mixing equal parts of suspense, hilarity, and raw human drama, Troon McAllister deftly shows readers what can happen when money, friendship, ambition, and greed converge explosively in a single round of golf. As Eddie Caminetti himself puts it in The Foursome, "Why do you think they call the devil Scratch?"
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Joe Aronica, founder/CEO of a successful aircraft company and member of a golf foursome at a snooty golf club in Danuba, Conn., receives an invitation from Eddie Caminetti (returning from McAllister's debut novel, The Green) to come play at a place called Swithen Bairn (promising "The most memorable golf vacation you've ever had...or you don't pay"), he overcomes the skepticism of his longstanding foursome and convinces them to spend their annual golf outing there. Chauffeured by limo to a windowless private Gulfstream jet, the group is whisked away to a tropical, perfectly manicured golf course that uses orchid-filled planter boxes for tee markers. Caught up in the surreal ambience, the foursome gets hustled into a money game with Caminetti and his team of "owners." When they lose, they badger Caminetti to give them a chance to get their money back. Soon, the gambling escalates to staggering proportions and the pressure strips bare the phoniness of their Rotarian personas, threatening to destroy their friendships. The writing in this book is serviceable, but McAllister never quite delivers the satire the plot promises. The once-a-week madras Bermudas gang may find the book mildly amusing, as it does flash some knowledge of the sport, but the book is no match for The Green, and even golfers may be put off by the author's reliance on the hip jive--"not even God can hit a 1-iron"--of the golfing cool.
