Honk Honk, My Darling: A Rex Koko, Private Clown Mystery by James Finn Garner
In Top Town, a ghetto full of washed-up circus lifers in the shadow of a big city, audiences come every night for cheap thrills, both wholesome and not. Fire eaters perform for gin money. Gypsies reveal the future (and for a sawbuck can make it happen). Daredevils cheat Death time after time, but once. And witness to it all is one of the most loved and notorious figures in Top Town, a tough joey with a deadly past and a nose for picking all the wrong fights: Rex Koko, private clown.
In Honk Honk, My Darling, Rex Koko is hired by an aging, arrogant trapeze star to bring back his wayward wife. Every time he comes close to finding her, however, other aerialists come to gruesome and spectacular ends. To keep from taking the rap himself, Rex needs to find the killer while keeping his own inner demons in check.
Is Addie Carlozo a “black widow”? Is Rex cursed with bad luck? Why is he being followed by those red-headed roustabout bastards, the Redd Brothers? And will “circus justice” intervene before the police do? Revenge, corruption and murder headline the bill in Top Town, where life comes 3 balls for a nickel. Babes, bullets, banana peels! As e.e. cummings said, “Damn everything, but the circus!”
HONK HONK, MY DARLING: A REX KOKO, PRIVATE CLOWN MYSTERY is available from Rex Koko, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Smashwords and iTunes.
*****
“Great book! This is Raymond Chandler meets Barnum & Bailey. It’s as entertaining as a car-load of clowns. Or more specifically, a car-load of tough-talking, poker-playing, metaphor-spewing clowns.” — A.J. Jacobs, Drop Dead Healthy, The Year of Living Biblically
“The writing is brilliant. The mystery is gripping. And Rex Koko, the clown detective, makes for a thoroughly engaging narrator. I loved this book and can’t wait for the sequel.” –Jonathan Eig, Get Capone, Luckiest Man
“Wonderful! Like Raymond Chandler before him, Garner explores the seedy underbelly of show business. And it’s a world populated by kinkers, joeys, flatties, ginks, bips, midgets and fat ladies.” — Matt Walsh, Upright Citizens Brigade, “High Life”
*****
James Finn Garner’s best known book is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, which spent 64 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, including six weeks in the top position. The book was also a best-seller in England and Canada, and has been translated into more than 25 languages. Its sequels, Once Upon A More Enlightened Time and Politically Correct Holiday Stories, were also best sellers sold around the world. His most recent book is the Kindle Single, Tea Party Fairy Tales. His writing and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, National Public Radio, and TV Guide, among others.
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