The Big O: An Albie Marx Mystery - Hardcover

Debin, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078670005X ISBN 13: 9780786700059

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1994

Synopsis

Albie Marx, the irreverent columnist for the alternative newspaper, Up Yours, reveals some financial misdoings and implicates some powerful--and angry--figures. By the author of Nice Guys Finish Dead.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Counterculture columnist Albie Marx must have been popping downers since Nice Guys Finish Dead (1992): he's positively sedate in this second caper. But everybody else is crazier than ever. Cindy Greene, Albie's informant against scamming L.A. banker Franklin Dart, is hysterically convinced that Dart's called in his goon Sonny Fabiano to kill her; Sonny's girlfriend Nicole Keyser, lately seen leaning on Dart, wants Albie to autograph her 20-year-old copy of his bestselling Roger Wellington Rat; Bridgett Horcheck, ex-daughter-in-law of Dart's Beverly Hills lawyer Sy Horcheck, is blowing hotter than hot and colder than cold on Albie, presumably ambivalent about whether she wants him to give her the big O; and that other big O, Dodgers' pitching sensation Oscar Hamilton, credits his no-hitter over the Giants to his abduction by aliens. Since it's Albie at the eye of the storm, you can be sure that the byzantine scam that connects all these zanies will implicate every authority figure from Sheik Anwar to Gregory Huston, the Republican candidate for the state house. Debin focuses the manic energy of his slapdash debut without losing any of Albie's raffish charm. You'll feel guilty next time you reach for your necktie or your pearls. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Debin distills the essence of L.A. looniness in the second outing, after Nice Guys Finish Dead , of hard-boiled hippie hero Albie Marx, reporter for Up Yours and a die-hard Dodgers fan. Bel Aire lawyer and teamster mouthpiece Sy Horcheck leans on Albie to drop an expose series that has already drawn enough blood from banker Franklin Dart to attract the Feds. Marx hoots at the threats until his old buddy Lenny is murdered shortly after saving Marx from an ambush in an alley. On his way to Horcheck's office to tell him to call off the wolves, Marx is waylaid by gorgeous daughter-in-law Bridgett Horcheck, with whom he begins a romance based on mutual lust and mistrust. Looking into Lenny's death, and annoying the LAPD, Marx opens a fully packed can of worms. Lenny, who was into a loan shark for over a mil, had borrowed from Dart to pay his IRS bill; Lenny's film star wife, who is boffing ace Dodger pitcher, Oscar "the Big O" Hamilton, was suing Lenny for a mega-settlement. A photo connects Dart, the mafia and Horcheck, while other clues lead to Marx's ex-wife now living with a guru who channels aliens. While Debin takes a twist from a recent movie for his ending, he paints a surreal L.A. with convincing style.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 078670005X
• ISBN 13: 9780786700059
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254