Twin Dicks Private Eyes: The Stiff Competition

Barnaby O'Tool died the way he lived: screaming at his landscaper. It's what happened afterward that's the problem.A dark comedy mystery for readers of Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen and Joe Lansdale - hardboiled, filthy, and funnier than it has any right to be.The Fertilizer King's widow wants two things from Carter Flint and Georgie: a name, and silence. Somebody has been letting themselves into the prep room at the Gilded Lily Country Club and Burial Grounds after closing, and treating the late Mr. O'Tool as party furniture. There's a public viewing Sunday. Five grand up front says the Twin Dicks find out who before the doors open.What starts as one discreet little desecration runs through a sweating mortician in crushed purple velvet, a grounds crew with a grudge and a very large pair of shears, and a wood chipper Carter would prefer not to discuss. The Gilded Lily sells eternal rest at fifty grand a year. Turns out the dead don't get much of it either.Carter Flint lost his badge, his pension and his marriage, in that order. Georgie owns the bar downstairs and a taxidermied loon he loves more than his own liver. They are not good men. They are, unfortunately, the only ones taking the case.Two private dicks. One corpse. A whole lot of regret.Case No. 1 of the Twin Dicks Private Eyes. A fast, filthy 137-page case set in the salt-and-diesel sprawl of Island Park, Long Island - noir crime fiction with the gallows humor turned all the way up and the good taste surgically removed. Adults only. No heroes, no lessons, no survivors with their dignity intact.