The Venus Deal - Softcover

Kuhlken, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1458746038 ISBN 13: 9781458746030

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant, 2012

Synopsis

While the rest of San Diego deals with the horrors and shortages of World War II, private investigator Tom Hickey is making his fortune moonlighting as half owner of Rudy's Hacienda, a downtown nightclub. That is, until the club's young jazz singer Cynthia Moon disappears and business drops precipitously. When Tom goes looking for Cynthia, he discovers her bizarre, tragic and dangerous family and a spiritualist cult led by her mother Venus. Can Hickey navigate the halfmad atmosphere of Venus' cult and find Cynthia? Can he save the girl from herself and the demons that haunt her, and still hold onto his business, his wife, and his daughter?

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Set a few months before the events in Kuhlken's previous novel, The Loud Adios, this book finds Tom Hickey still a civilian, still, if somewhat precariously, married, and part owner of a nightclub in wartime San Diego. The war is World War II, and Hickey is making money, due to the phenomenal appeal of the club's very young female singer, Cynthia Moon. Hickey's partner, Paul Castillo, has his mysterious sources for such rare wartime luxuries as creamery butter and Maine lobster, but it is Cynthia who draws the crowds. Except now Cynthia Moon has disappeared. Business drops precipitously and sometime private detective Hickey sets off on a search for her. She is elusive, but Hickey encounters her bizarre and tragic family. Her father, a pathetic adventurer destroyed by his wife, is dying in a nursing home. Venus, Cynthia's mother, has joined an ostensible Indian guru, Master Pravinshandra, to lead an ominous cult whose benign surface covers suspicion of rape and murder. While Hickey finds, loses, and once more finds Cynthia, his own life is falling apart. His partner is probably cheating him, his wife is slipping away from him, his beloved teenage daughter is being pulled along with her. Kuhlken magically evokes the times, the half-mad atmosphere of Venus's cult, and the hard reality of a business where it's not possible to stay clear of the mob. And over all is The War - the war that is transforming all their lives.

About the Author:

Ken Kuhlken's stories have appeared in Esquire and dozens of other magazines and anthologies, been honorably mentioned in Best American Short Stories, and earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He has been a frequent contributor and a columnist for the San Diego Reader.
 
With Alan Russell, he has chronicled the madness of book tours in Road Kill and No Cats, No Chocolate.
 
His novels are Midheaven, a finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel, The Loud Adios (Private Eye Writers of America Best First Novel, 1989), The Venus Deal, The Angel Gang, The Do-Re-Mi (a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel), The Vagabond Virgins, and The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, (San Diego Book Awards Best Mystery of 2010).
 
In Writing and the Spirit, he offers a wealth of advice to writers and everyone looking for inspiration.
 
He also teaches writing at Perelandra College.
 
 
 
 

About this edition

• Publisher: ReadHowYouWant
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1458746038
• ISBN 13: 9781458746030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 492