Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Lake Elmo Library | MYSTERY HAU | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Seventy-three-year-old ex-poker player Axel Speeter has one more winner-take-all hand to play with a pair of crooks who are after the $260,000 he keeps squirreled away in his room at the Motel 6. A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book for 1996.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard fans who have yet to discover Hautman's wryly comic, warmly human characters and madcap plots are in for a treat. Septuagenarian Axel Speeter, former roving gambler, now star taco entrepreneur at the annual Minnesota State Fair, lives at the Motel 6 despite having squirreled away $260,000 in cold cash inside coffee cans. Bucking the doubts of two pals from his swashbuckling gambling days-auto mechanic and junkyard proprietor Sam O'Gara (returning from Hautman's Drawing Dead and Short Money) and pint-sized Tommy Fabian, the fair's mini-donut king-the sentimental but streetwise and ever-libidinous Axel sends for Carmen, the sexy daughter of his mistress and business manager. Carmen, a med-tech student in Omaha, may be wild and possessed of a larcenous heart, but Axel knows that she sells tacos like no one else. Following her to the fair this year, however, is her skinhead lover and drug-dealer, Valium-hooked ex-con James Dean, who plans to steal Axel's coffee cans and head for Baja. When he can't find Axel's cache, Dean's interest turns to the midget donut king and his stash of cash. Mayhem ensues, inevitably. This is about as offbeat as a comic crime novel can get, and entertaining enough to win Hautman a whole passel of new admirers. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another riotous carnival of larcenous fun à la Elmore Leonard--this time set in and around a real carnival. Taco tycoon Axel Speeter, who doesn't like banks, keeps his fortune in Folgers--$260,000 in seven coffee cans, to be precise. Sophie Roman, newly promoted to manager of Axel's Taco Shop, doesn't know about it, but her footloose daughter Carmen does, and soon so do Carmen's boyfriend James Dean and his new skinhead friends, Tigger (the little, dumb one), Sweety (the big, even dumber one), and Pork (their pumped-up crank connection). All Axel wants to do is max out his take at the Minnesota State Fair; all Carmen, an aspiring nurse, wants to do is dose herself with bigger and bigger hits of Valium--at least until she samples the crank; all Dean wants to do is plunge his arms up to the elbows in Axel's greasy greenbacks. While all are biding their time waiting for Hautman's hilariously overgalvanized plot to kick in, Axel reminisces about some long-ago hands of poker he played with his buddies Sam O'Gara, the human randomizer, and Tommy Fabian, the monarch of Tiny Tot Donuts; surprisingly capitalistic Sophie and increasingly brain-dead Carmen jockey for position at the taco counter; and Dean goes after Axel's buddy Tommy Fabian, of Tiny Tot Donuts, and spends a lot of time mangling bits from the John Donne book borrowed from the sister he killed back in Omaha. Even minor characters, like the Motel 6 night manager and the clotheshorse twinkie Axel's hired for the State Fair stint, share the tunnel-vision looniness, convinced, like Axel and Dean, that their ships are about to come in. Hautman (Short Money, 1995, etc.) provides pleasantly hallucinogenic dialogue that faithfully reflects the mixture of nonstop junk food, increasingly toxic drugs, and background noise from the Tilt-a-Whirl and the hog pens just outside the midway; the whole world vibrates, with each felonious dreamer always on the cusp of a carnival buzz. Joyfully loony--as blissful as a ton of cotton candy.
Booklist Review
Cantankerous 73-year-old Axel Speeter makes enough money selling tacos during the two-week run of the Minnesota State Fair to support himself for the rest of the year. Of course, Axel lives in a Motel 6. But he has accumulated $260,000 in cash and keeps it in Folger's coffee cans. He also has a fiftyish sometime lover, Sophie, who has a voluptuous daughter named Carmen, and they both work for Axel. Carmen has a skinhead boyfriend named James Dean, who sets his sights on Axel's cash. Strange events ensue. Hautman has a wonderful ear for low-rent dialogue and powers of description that make the sensory welter of a gargantuan midwestern state fair come alive. His skill as a creator of comic crime novels (Drawing Dead [1993], Short Money [1995]) has been likened to that of Elmore Leonard and Joe Gores, but after a hilarious start, The Mortal Nuts takes a grim and jarring turn. Even so, it is skillfully written and will entertain many crime-fiction fans. --Thomas Gaughan
Library Journal Review
In the latest from the author of Short Money (S. & S., 1995), 73-year-old Axel Speeter runs a popular taco stand at the Minnesota State Fair, lives at the Motel 6, and stashes his loot in coffee cans. His part-time lover, Sophie, and her curvaceous daughter, Carmen, run the concession, while Carmen's ex-con lover contemplates the theft of Axel's fortune. Idiosyncratic characters bounce off each other against colorful backdrops. Crisp, solid, and dryly humorous, this is highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/96.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
