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BOOKS Buzz Riff : A Novel of Crime Carroll & Graf - October 2004 I DESCRIPTION I REVIEWS I |
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 DESCRIPTIONAfter his successful debut in Buzz Monkey, Top Kiernan is back. Only life in Athens, Georgia has grown more complicated. His former office manager (and ex-lover) has stolen half his clients and set up shop on her own. Top's no longer banking big bucks as an operative for Shaw’s Mercantile Marine, which has found his addiction to the adrenaline buzz a dangerous risk. He's six months behind in mortgage payments, and Fourth Federal is set to foreclose. So, for all his objections—the job’s too small, the client’s a racist—has no choice, really. He needs the twenty thousand. All he has to do is recover a Confederate battle flag—the one that stanched General "Stonewall" Jackson’s wounds when he was fatally shot on May 2, 1863, and in that instant became an American relic of incalculable value. Top’s search for the flag takes him and his friends on a raucous jaunt from Athens to the mansion of a multimillionaire stripper-turned-car-dealer to an armed compound in the Okefenokee Swamp to a tattoo convention. In between, they outwit and outrun obsessive collectors, bikers, ATF agents, the KKK, and more. It’s not exactly the way to beat an adrenaline habit. Polymath is beginning to founder, mainly because of competition and dirty tricks by ex-office manager and ex-lover Gillie. She’s stolen half his clients and set up shop on her own. And of course, it’s harder to make ends meet without those bundles of cash from Shaw’s Mercantile Marine. Now he’s six months behind in mortgage payments and Fourth Federal is set to foreclose. So despite his objections, he accepts Professor Jay Pope-Scott’s proposition to recover a lost Confederate flag, “The Bloody Red Rag,” not only one of the earliest of the stars-and-bars battle flags (the design we now know as THE Confederate flag, but in reality only one of many used) but the one that was in Stonewall Jackson’s saddlebags the night he was shot, and used as a compress on his wound. A southern Shroud of Turin of almost incalculable value. OK, the job’s too small, and the client is more or less a racist jerk—sample proposition from Pope-Scott’s last book, Dixie-caust: rapist slaveowners improved the gene pool of their mixed-race descendants—but he needs every cent he can scrape up to save the school from Gillie and the bank. The search for the flag takes Top into the bizarre world of fanatical memorabilia collectors, and along the way he dodges the ATF, pedophiles, an abortion clinic bomber, Klansmen, biker tattoo artists, and a compound of right wing nuts hidden away in the depths of the Okefenokee Swamp. Benny is big in this one, and, as a result of popular demand (and because I was going to anyway,) Dee Lane is back. REVIEWS Reviewers "Keirnan is lots of fun if a bit over the top….supporting characters
are less memorable and pacing is uneven, but Hill’s infectious
enthusiasm somehow trumps these flaws. The second in a series with
strong potential." "Coming off his strong debut, Hill may have the makings of a
powerhouse series." Even better than its predecessor, Buzz Riff is sure to win an
enthusiastic readership, and it confirms Hill as a notable emerging
author. The writing is tough and clever…extremely entertaining.
Hard to top. |
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