“Martin Anderson is a 44-year-old adolescent. He’s married to a good woman, has two appealing kids, owns a business that buys and sells used private airplanes and he’s a really nice guy. But he has never grown up. It’s 1974, and times are not as tough as in 2011, but surprisingly similar: oil is scarce and the economy is in the doldrums. Anderson Aircrafts is what we’d call today ‘underwater.’ Martin’s biggest problem, though, is that he’s a habitual liar—lying to himself as well as to everyone else. His idea of an explanation is to come up with a ‘cover story.’ And as a liar himself, he suspects everyone else of lying, which complicates his life significantly.
When he’s offered big money to make a few quick flights to Mexico to pick up illicit drugs, what’s a guy who has never learned to make responsible decisions going to do? How else can he hold onto his upscale home, Cadillac, private boat, race horse (!), etc.?
In 300+ pages we get pretty deeply inside this guy’s head, and I think most readers will, like me, recognize a little residual adolescence in ourselves, and somehow hope for a happy ending here. We come to understand why Publishers Weekly calls Martin Anderson ‘the most lovable drug smuggler in ages.’
A brilliant debut novel. [We’re indebted to Adam Woog for bringing this wonderful book, from a publisher which rarely does crime fiction, to our attention in his recent column in The Seattle Times.]—Bill, Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Buy Something for Nothing from Seattle Mystery Bookshop.