TOPLESS. A Novel

Nebraska priest Father Michael Wilson journeys to New York City to investigate the disappearance of his brother, Tony, and finds himself overseeing Tony's business, a topless restaurant, and embroiled with drug dealers, Mafia wiseguys, strippers, and murder

This offbeat and entertaining crime thriller features Mike Wilson, a young Episcopalian priest who leaves his rural Nebraska parish to pinch-hit at his missing brother's establishment, a bar called the Smoking Car. Glad to be back in his old Queens (N.Y.) neighborhood, happy to help out his sister-in-law and four young nieces, likable Mike is surprised to learn that the main draw at the Smoking Car is its bevy of topless dancers. Settling into his work, he worries first that the bar's staff and clientele--whose personalities quickly supercede their stereotypes--will discover he's a priest and then that his corn-fed Nebraska fiancee will discover his new line of work. Mostly, however, he struggles gamely to resolve the conflict between his spiritual inclinations and those of the flesh. The weeks pass and his brother fails to show up; Mike suspects drugs are being traded in the establishment; four of the dancers are gruesomely killed. A dramatic climax, while somewhat contrived, leads to a satisfying denouement in this reflective, appreciative novel from Mano ( The Bridge ), who is definitely not a leg man.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lively debut of a mystery series by the author of Take Five (1982), etc. Once known for his off-putting and dense verbal energy, Mano has slimmed down to a racing-car sentence that still packs high- powered inventiveness. Tony Wilson, the brother of Father Mike Wilson, an Episcopal priest in Nebraska, has disappeared in Queens. Will Mike come east and run Tony's topless bar for his wife Ethel and their four daughters until Tony resurfaces? Mike leaves his librarian fianc‚e Kay behind, finds himself hiring and firing topless dancers at the Smoking Car (Mano handles all this flesh marvelously, does a knockout documentary on topless dancers as professionals), and ends up knee-deep in money, hoods, drug sales, dancers, and then blood as in succession four of his dancers are murdered, three of them on the stage itself (one is beheaded). Will Kay understand when she comes east and finds a naked dancer waiting on the couch? And when the papers shout PRIEST RAN TOPLESS MURDER BAR, will the church understand? Stylish first bow of the defrocked priest hero. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Most collections will also want to purchase Mano's mystery/thriller. His personal research shines forth in this story of an equivocal Episcopal priest, Mike Wilson, who temporarily assumes management of his brother's topless nightclub when the brother disappears. Called to Queens (New York City) by his distraught sister-in-law, Mike faces possible gambling and drug problems at the club, temptations of naked flesh and dirty dancers, and then blame for a series of grotesque murders. Mike's diary--by turns irreverent, introspective, ingenuous, and humorous--provides the distinctive narrative for an otherwise standard plot.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.