1993 Shamus Award for Best Original PI Paperback (nominee)
"So many things have changed since the accident," Lori McGurk had put it to me. Lori was the wife of "Terrible" Tommy McGurk: former pro wrestler, current pro-wrestling manager. Life had delivered some awfully rough wallops to Tommy's chin. The roughest was the auto accident that claimed the life of their only child, Tommy Jr. A wet snow driven by hard winds, a treacherously slick patch of ice, a bridge abutment ... then nothing. A black hole where life had been. A wrenching ache in a place that had been filled with love.
The same crash that killed Tommy Jr. also left Tommy Sr. with a leg crushed in so many places there was no chance to set it, to ever make it fully functional again. They gave him a titanium hip socket, fused the knee and ankle. Bad as that was, it seemed relatively minor at the time. At least he was alive.
Eventually, Tommy got back in the wrestling game. Not in the ring, of course, but as a manager. They've got him wearing a gunslinger's mustache and dark suits and carrying a silver-tipped cane, really playing up his bad leg, interfering with the refs and the opponents, pumping the crowd, pulling all sorts of underhanded tricks to help his wrestler win. All things Tommy used to hate. But he loved the game so much and he wanted to ... to participate so badly, that he accepted their offer. And it's working out pretty well. But ... the wrestler Tommy is managing is Paula the Platinum Powerhouse. If you've never seen or heard of her, she's quite a stunning creature. Nearly six feet tall, breathtakingly proportioned, with Monroe-platinum blond hair.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Lori called me because she thought this Paula and Tommy may be having an affair. But once I'd taken Lori McGurk's money and agreed to look into things for her, the case had taken off like a runaway roller coaster, long since jumping its track and sucking me along for a white-knuckled ride in directions I'd no-way-in-hell anticipated.
Genre: Mystery
The same crash that killed Tommy Jr. also left Tommy Sr. with a leg crushed in so many places there was no chance to set it, to ever make it fully functional again. They gave him a titanium hip socket, fused the knee and ankle. Bad as that was, it seemed relatively minor at the time. At least he was alive.
Eventually, Tommy got back in the wrestling game. Not in the ring, of course, but as a manager. They've got him wearing a gunslinger's mustache and dark suits and carrying a silver-tipped cane, really playing up his bad leg, interfering with the refs and the opponents, pumping the crowd, pulling all sorts of underhanded tricks to help his wrestler win. All things Tommy used to hate. But he loved the game so much and he wanted to ... to participate so badly, that he accepted their offer. And it's working out pretty well. But ... the wrestler Tommy is managing is Paula the Platinum Powerhouse. If you've never seen or heard of her, she's quite a stunning creature. Nearly six feet tall, breathtakingly proportioned, with Monroe-platinum blond hair.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Lori called me because she thought this Paula and Tommy may be having an affair. But once I'd taken Lori McGurk's money and agreed to look into things for her, the case had taken off like a runaway roller coaster, long since jumping its track and sucking me along for a white-knuckled ride in directions I'd no-way-in-hell anticipated.
Genre: Mystery
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