Excerpt
Primrose Hill, London NW1, on the first summer Saturday the mercury hit twenty-five degrees was not the place for me. Packed as it was with semi-naked people, the place looked more like the Costa del Sol in August. Bad decision, Jake! Better to have stayed at home and watched telly, but by then it was too late. There is no way Binkey can be dragged out of a park he’s already in. Hell to play as he wraps his lead around a tree and performs his idea of a sit-in, bottom rooted to the grass and forepaws planted in defiance while baring his teeth at passers-by in what he thinks of as his wolf impression. Which I tell him makes him look at best mental, but you can see how passers-by might feel differently when faced with a Dachshund/Doberman cross pretending to be a wolf; frightened, for example. Not that Binkey has ever bitten a passer-by, you understand; just likes them to think he might. So it was I was left with little choice but to continue indulging Binkey’s walkie needs and trudge on through the mass of unedifying man- and womankind.
All the ones around me were currently turned to the sun spit-roasting themselves at a future cost to the National Health Service in carcinoma treatment of squillions, money the NHS couldn’t afford because the bankers had stolen it all and the government didn’t dare ask for it back. As I had time and again in my years on the planet, I asked myself what the world was coming to, a thought I shared with Binkey as we stumbled through the dumbed-down, bunkered-in, smartphone-silly, flabby flotsam of the second decade of the twenty-first century.
“Bloody hell, Binkey,” I commented close to the top of the hill, narrowly avoiding the head of a whale-like German lying--well, more like floundering--on his stomach as he tried to capture on his iPad the splendour of the cityscape laid out beneath him: the London Eye, the Sexy Gherkin, the Shard, all of that. I knew the whale was German from the way he kept re-angling his iPad to get his picture exactly right and grunting, “Vorsprung durch Technik.”
“You wonder what a Martian expeditionary commander would make of this lot, don’t you?” I asked Binkey. “Probably call home straight away and tell his boss to cancel invasion plans in case the troops catch something nasty. Advise him to check out black holes instead.”
“Raaafff, raaafff!” Binkey said from the other end of his lead, but I could tell from the way he was tugging towards an--illegal!--barbie a few yards away from the German’s head my analysis of the planet’s problems wasn’t the cause of his excitement. What was interesting Binkey more than self-induced Armageddon were the sausages currently turning the same shade as the people cooking them.
“Binkey, heel,” I commanded.
Fat chance. Binkey doesn’t obey any commands except Walkies, Din-Dins and Bikkies, which strictly speaking aren’t commands at all. More like offers.
“HEEL!” I nonetheless repeated pointlessly...which was when the really bad thing had to happen.
Call it catastrophe theory, call it nemesis, call it anything you like, but I ask you: What ungodly presence was it which had to inspire the German, at that very moment, to kick out an excited leg at the capture of the pic he doubtless hoped would soon grace the cover of a Der Spiegel and thereby cause me to trip and let go of Binkey’s lead such that the freed beast made a bee-line for the barbie--tended as it turned out by a band of Russians--piss on it, scarf all the sausages, and then run away to the other side of the hill to take part in a baseball game organised by American dads for their cutesy Major-League-wannabe progeny...and steal their ball? I mean, life’s hard enough, right?
“Hey, schmuck, that your dawg stole our ball?” the Little League’s head honcho dad bawled at me as I chased Binkey down the backside of the hill after having parted company with twenty quid in recompense to the outraged Russians for their doused barbie, plus sausage loss. It had been either that or, as an amazon called Olga explained, “a bick kickink.” Right there in my own back yard. Me a resident of the area! But what can you do when confronted by not only the sort of woman who looked like she ate Chechens for breakfast, but also the phalanx of ex-KGB-looking types--not at all obese, this crew--who eyed me while flexing their pecs and checking their tatts? Not a lot, that’s what. Just as well I had some cash about my person, otherwise I would likely have been on my way to hospital rather than being free to stumble down the backside of the hill in search of Binkey and be called a schmuck by Chuck.
That’s what the head honcho dad was called--Chuck. And he didn’t calm down one jot when I finally came to a standstill in front of him. No handshaking or knuckle-bumping or anything like that. Only, “Chuck’s the name an’ don’t screw with me, ’kay? Just get our goddam ball off of your goddam mutt so’s we can carry on with our game. Some of the littler guys crying, you see that? Crying. And all ’cos’ve your dawg stealing their ball.”
Chuck looked and sounded like a gone-to-seed linebacker. Probably little more than thirty-five years old, but, to judge from the lack of hair sprouting from the sides of the New York Yankees navy-with-white-and-light-blue-stripes cap, balding. He was big though. Maybe six foot two and sixteen stone. Which made him more or less the same height as me only heavier. I’m more the bean-pole type of tall person.
“Hi, Chuck, I’m Jake,” I said.
“Do I care what you’re name is? Just get my ball off of your mutt.”
“Okay. Any idea where my mutt is?” I said, shading my eyes from the blasting sun and peering about as some other jejune ex-jock dads came trotting over to join in hassling me.
“Yeah, Limey! Like now?” they chorused, hunching their shoulders and standing tough, even though most of them had even less hair than Chuck and were smaller. Average height five-nine I reckoned as I continued with my sailor-scanning-the-horizon number in search of Binkey. And not a patch on the ex-KGB/New Mafiya barbie mob when it came to muscle either. Flaccid bottoms, wobbly guts, arachnid legs, that sort of thing. Most likely a group of marooned-in-London ex-Madoff wannabes. But nonetheless I was heavily outnumbered, especially when a group of hefty moms and mini-Yankees took to egging on their menfolk. Not much mileage in getting quarrelsome then.
“Binkey! BIN-KEY!’ I therefore called. “B-I-I-NNK-E-E-Y C-O-O-M-E.”
Silence. No obedient pawsteps trotting back to Master. No sign at all of the beast. Not that I was all that surprised. As I said, Binkey isn’t great at commands. Which disappointed the Americans big time. Grisling and growling all around. Mutterings about how pretty soon they’d be calling 911 unless they got some satisfaction. What the hell was it with us Brits and dogs? Stateside, dogs were kept on leashes everyplace, for crissakes!
I sighed .
“Look,” I said, palming air, “haven’t you got a spare ball? A tennis ball or something?”
“Tennis ball? TenNIS ball??? No self-respecting person plays baseball with a tennis ball, Juke. No way, José,” I was informed by Chuck, who had now swivelled his cap around so the downturned peak covered his left ear.
“Plus the ball we had until your mutt stole it was, like, special? Signed by Alfredo Aceves and a bunch of other Yankees’ stars. No way are we gonna lose that ball to no dingbat mutt. You following me here, Juke?”
“Actually the name’s Jake? Doctor Jake Flintlock. I live here. And you are starting to piss me off,” I said, feeling quarrelsome after all.
Well, that went down like a lead parachute. Moms and pops sucking in cheeks and jutting out jaws. Brats chewing gum at me. An international incident brewing, no question about it.
When Murder is Humorous – A review of the novel ‘Hand In Glove’
“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last” - Oscar Wilde
Private investigators and the field of PI work have long held our fascination. So much so that they have become an intrinsic part of everyday fiction through radio programs, suspense and thriller novels and of course film and television shows, where a PI brought in from outside solves the mystery and thereby saving the day, has become the most dependable and staple plot line of all such shows. And when you are talking about private investigators how can you not mention the most famous of them all, I’m talking about the iconic Sherlock Holmes himself.
And t¬hanks to such novels, movies and television shows, people can immediately summon up a mental image of a PI when they hear about one. And the one you are most likely to have is the image of the stereotypical private investigator. One who operates out of a single room, a dim lit office in a shady area of the town, an office cluttered with files and paperwork with the lone PI sitting back in a rickety old chair with a lit pipe sticking out the corner of his mouth and blowing slow smoky circles of intense puffs, greeting the unsure and nervous clients with overzealous secretive ambience.
If that is the perception you’ve been carrying around, then get ready to chuck it out and embrace the new generation PI’s.
In author Paddy Bostock’s latest novel Hand In Glove, PI’s Dr Jake Flintlock and his sidekick Dr Bum Park are wealthy and live in high end homes and lead a very affluent life when not taking on investigative assignments. Their blissful to the account of almost dreary lives change the day Binkey, Jake’s dog discovers a severed hand inside a baseball mitt. Which then soon leads to the murder of an American, Chuck Cinzano at Jake’s house at Primrose Hill, London; who apart from being a lot of other things was also the bloke whose game of baseball with his friends was disrupted by Binkey when he found the severed hand. And in light of the clues and revelations that reveal themselves in the aftermath of Chuck’s ‘murder’, Jake & Bum take on this apparent ‘murder’ case which takes them on a whirl-winding trip all the way to California, where Jake and Bum soon begin to suspect that everything isn’t as obvious as it seems on the surface. The rest of this story focuses on how they manage to overcome the many hurdles to find the real culprit.
Hand In Glove is unlike any other novel in its genre out there, with enough satire and madcap madness and mayhem to satisfy the attention span of even a first time reader. There are questionable dead bodies, scorned ex-lovers, dubious alliances, the ever lingering sexual tension between the unlikeliest of pairs and the staunchest of loyalty that you can find between the two lead pairs in any sort of fiction. Jake and Bum may be an odd couple but they share some great chemistry and work very well in tandem to the flow of the story. The nasty cynical humour in it, the very colourful language a character like Dr Bum Park uses and the subtle references and gentle nods to other great pieces of fiction over the years are all what makes Hand In Glove a real gem in the list of its contemporaries.
If you like gritty natty thrillers that are narrated by a very intelligent and knowledgeable voice with well drawn out and colourful characters, a story that grabs you by the collar in the first few pages itself and doesn’t let go until the end, then this compelling suspense mystery thriller with more than a good dollops of witty English humour is the perfect choice for you. To use a baseball analogy as it is in the midst of a baseball game that it all starts; Paddy Bostock has hit one right out of the park with this novel, a definite homerun. It’s written in a pacy narrative that travels at just the right speed letting you soak in all the madness in this thriller. I wonder if anyone will be able to forget Binkey, Stormin Normin and Kyorugi Joonbi even after turning over the last page, to find out who or what they are, you have to go and purchase Paddy Bostock’s Hand In Glove.
There is one warning though that I have to issue, the moment you are done with Hand In Glove, you may feel this irresistible urge to run right out to buy another one of the Paddy’s books and immediately start to read it. Why? Read Hand In Glove and you’ll find out soon enough!
Well, aren't you a chip off the old Flintlock! (Just had to say that--;-))
When I saw the cover, I immediately thought that most Britishers were Cricket fans, and didn't give much thought to baseball, but as I read you revealing your multilingual skills, I realized that you are catering to the American crowd with your latest humorous tome making fun of everybody, including your hero with broad swipes at the bloated ego of 21st century Homo Sapiens. I'm already saying, "Bravo!", and I haven't read any more than this little excerpt.
The Wholly Book of Doo-Doo-Rot-on-Me is adult satirical humor featuring adult language and adult content, and the work is a parody of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy.
Thirteen Sick Tasteless Classics, Part II is adult literature featuring adult language and situations that satirizes thirteen famous novellas and short stories. It is Jay Dubya's sixteenth ebook.
