Bloody Martini
A Felonious Monk Mystery
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3.6 • 16 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning and bestselling author William Kotzwinkle is back with the second in the darkly comedic Felonious Monk series featuring Tommy Martini, a Benedictine monk with an anger management problem. Felonious Monk was praised as “amiably satirical” (Washington Post) and “a whiplash adventure” (Wall Street Journal).
Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.
At the heart of Coalville is Parade Square, with plenty of pigeons, drugs, and child prostitution. It’s the new small-town America, where Dionysus is dancing once again. William Kotzwinkle’s insight into this paradigm shift is shot through with the humor he is famous for, and the result is a spicy brew, a bloody martini—just one sip may keep you up all night.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kotzwinkle's exceptional sequel to 2021's Felonious Monk takes Benedictine monk and killer Tommy Martini back to his birthplace of Coalville, to honor the final request of his best friend, Finn Sweeney. Finn's plea—in a frantic voicemail message cut off by a gun shot—is for Martini to find and take care of his wife, Bridget Breen, an old crush of Martini's from their high school days when Martini was captain of the football team. In Coalville, Martini fends off local goons, bought-off cops, and politicians who want him dead—in particular, Brian Fury, the sadistic district attorney who couldn't pin Martini for murder eight years earlier. The trail Martini pursues leads to a child prostitution conspiracy that seems to involve everyone in town. Queenie O'Malley, who admired Martini in high school and drew a cartoon of the football team for the school paper, provides some romantic distraction, even though she's engaged to be married and he's a monk. This wry, extremely funny, character-driven novel will remind readers of classic L.A. noir, though its treatment of relations between men and women has been updated for modern sensibilities. Kotzwinkle is sure to win new fans with this one.
