![[space]](images/space.gif){kind=small}
Now Available: Kaleidoscope (The Toby Press)
The trail leads south to Kaleidoscope: a "beddy" for freaks during the months when carnival is out-of-season. In this malformed community peopled by dwarfs and giants, legless women and women with three breasts, Siamese twins and sword-swallowers, Jack is very much the odd man out. Convincing these folk of his sincerity and amiability while surreptitiously trying to find out what happened to the stolen cash is going to take all his ingenuity—and will have results he could never have anticipated. "Hapless, handsome Jack Romaine, a small-time gambler and drinker in 1929 Cincinnati, tracks a mysterious woman who's the key to a hidden fortune in Wimberley's evocative mystery... Best known for his Florida-based Bear Raines series (Pepperfish Keys, etc.), Wimberley invests both Jack and the carnie freaks with distinct personalities and common dignity. This vividly captured subculture has its own grotesque charm and beauty."
Purchase Darryl Wimberley's books at your local independent bookstore, Powells.com, amazon.com or bn.com. Web site by interbridge |
Jack Romaine's addiction to speakeasies and cards has landed him in a tight spot-one which he can't use his good looks to get out of. With debts to dangerous men piling up, he becomes an unwilling recruit for a Cincinnati gangster needing an expendable tool to recover his stolen cash and railroad bonds. Unfortunately, Jack is not the only man on the trail of the stolen money—he is in competition with a sadistic killer who relishes the carnage he leaves in his wake.