The Events Concerning
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Back in the nineties a novella, "The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance," about jobless Plebin Cook, his daughter Jasmine, and a used bookstore owner named Martha, received a Bram Stoker Award and appeared to be the start of a series.
It wasn’t.
But now, we’re taking a time machine back to the original story, involving circus dogs, mannikins and a serial killer, and we’re adding a quirky, short novel, The Events Concerning Two Stabbed Clowns in a Bloody Bathtub. The novel is wilder than the original tale and answers the question: What did Plebin and the gang do next?
A missing cat leads to an outrageous blackmail scheme, a sex video, a body in an out of the way cemetery, a sexy mortician, clown orgies, bathtub stabbings, and a missing child.
But Plebin, Jasmine and Martha are on the job, because they not only have a used bookstore to run, they own a private eye agency, BOOKS AND BULLETS, and they are clown deep into a twisty investigation.
An investigation that soon becomes a race against time to rescue a child before she is deprived of air and a wicked vengeance is completed.
Step up and step out with the gang.
But watch the face paint and the blood puddles, and keep your back to the wall.
Things are about to go sideways in the best way possible for a reader craving mystery, suspense, and unexpected thrills.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In "The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance," the entertaining first of two novellas in this welcome collection from Edgar winner Lansdale (Born for Trouble), work-shy Plebin Cook joins forces with Jasmine, his 17-year-old daughter, and Martha, the gruff bookstore owner he lives above, to spy on Waldo the Clown, whom they suspect may be a serial killer. Somewhat predictably, their foolhardy efforts to find evidence against the clown get them in trouble with the law. The oddball trio's witty repartee and the lively finale make up for the routine plot. In the sequel, "The Events Concerning Two Stabbed Clowns in a Bloody Bathtub," a gory and suspenseful vengeance tale, Plebin, Jasmine, and Martha, who have established a private detective agency, pursue blackmailers targeting wealthy accountant Lou Cassidy. Lou, a former client of theirs, wants to pay a $25,000 ransom for his kidnapped wife and keep her infidelity quiet, but the identity of the mystery man on a sex tape mailed to Lou marks the first in a series of twisty surprises. Lansdale has been better, but these casually violent and absurdly amusing adventures are inspired guilty pleasures.
