FFB #2: Pink Vodka Blues -- Neal Barrett, Jr.

I'm rerunning a couple of posts (this one's from 2009) today to honor the memory of Neal Barrett, Jr., who wrote mysteries and SF and was an all-around great guy.

Neal Barrett wrote some of the funniest, wildest, and most idiosyncratic crime novels of the '90s, of which Pink Vodka Blues was the first. It's a hilarious take on a classic situation. Russell Murray is the editor of a literary magazine in Chicago. He drinks way too much. And he's in big trouble when he wakes up in a hotel room with a beautiful woman just before two men come into the room and kill her. They try to kill Murray, too, but he gets away. Things never slow down after that.

Wanted for murder, Murray winds up in a detox center in Wisconsin. He escapes along with a beautiful redhead named Sherry Lou Wynn. One of his many problems is that he has no memory of where he's been or what he's done. He and Sherry Lou try to stay alive while being pursued around the country by homicidal goons, including the murderous Wacker twins and a blue-haired, tennis-shoe wearing granny with an Uzi. Bones Pinelli wants his briefcase back, by golly, and he doesn't care who dies as long as he gets it.

You've probably guessed that there's a surprise in the briefcase, but I'm not telling. If you've never read this book, you're in for a real treat. And while you're at it, you should check out Dead Dog Blues, Skinny Annie Blues, and Bad Eye Blues. They're all standalones, not series books, and they're guaranteed to be unlike anything else you've read. What are you waiting for?