Loose Coins
A Mystery
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
AL SEARS had it all. Once a hot-shot criminal lawyer, he had a trophy wife, a fortune, and a respected position in local Memphis society. But he also had a drinking problem-- one that cost him everything: his career, his wife, his fortune, and his self-respect. Now sober, Al Sears is a licensed PI and part-time clerk in Ralph's coin shop, with a small apartment, an old car, and a chair at the Thursday-night poker game in the apartment above the shop.
But even this peaceful existence is shattered when a shotgun-wielding intruder tries to knock over the game. The robber attempts to take Al hostage, but Al, sensing that this is more than simple theft, tackles him, narrowly avoiding a blast from his gun, and two of the other players shot the man to death. Already shaken by the experience, Al learns from the responding police officers that his intuition was correct-- this was no simple robbery. The dead man was a known hired killer-- one of the deadliest.
Al has to face the truth that someone is trying to kill him. Given his past, any number of people could be to blame. Given the alcoholic haze in which he lived for years, he may not even remember the person who's now out to get him. Al must look into his own past, determine who is trying to kill him, and stop them before they succeed...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When he hit the bottle, Memphis lawyer Al Sears lost his wife, his practice and his beloved coin collection. Now he's sober, doing a little private investigating and helping out his good pal Ralph in his coin shop. When Al and Ralph become a hit man's apparent target, Al is forced to dig into the dregs of his past to find out who wants him dead and why. Al takes a cavalier approach to his many woes and to the assorted people in his life: Judy, his icy ex-wife; Harlan, his friend, fellow coin collector and a surprisingly wealthy and powerful ex-cop; and Sue, Al's reticent new love. Near the end of the novel, when Al gets clobbered with a shovel, is force-fed a bottle of booze and wakes up drunk on a narrow ledge, readers will agree that this guy has had "cat's lives." Al's an absorbing lead, but there's a paucity of character development here, and co-authors Hensley (Robak's Witch) and Townsend don't do a whole lot with their Memphis setting either. Even so, they exhibit a lean narrative style that's appealing for its lack of pretension.
