BLOODY MARTINI
A FELONIOUS MONK MYSTERY, BOOK 2
Optioned for a TV series by Fox Entertainment.
Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.
At the heart of Coalville is Parade Square, with plenty of pigeons, drugs, and child prostitution. It’s the new small-town America, where Dionysus is dancing once again. William Kotzwinkle’s insight into this paradigm shift is shot through with the humor he is famous for, and the result is a spicy brew, a bloody martini—just one sip may keep you up all night.
WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING
“Modern literary master William Kotzwinkle returns after a lengthy absence to serve us up a double Bloody Murder… the wait has been worth it.”
“The unflinching Zen-master of all trades in fiction reveals some of his best, most disarming magic in the epic sequel to Felonious Monk, proving again that no one does a gumshoe thriller quite like William Kotzwinkle. Here is a damn-near miraculous and grimly hilarious two-gun rocket ride through a mystic labyrinth of passion and crime, populated by a seemingly never-ending cast of quirky guys and dangerous dames, sadistic gangsters and salacious street toughs – there’s even a Kung Fu hairdresser!—-all running on fumes from hell’s own refinery, circled by the one man who might save them, and yet is the most tragic and fated of all: the renegade monk Tommy Martini.
In Kotzwinkle’s masterful hands and through Tommy’s unflinching eyes, we face the evils of our times and the most desperate and important questions of god and man in a constant battle for our own soul, all the while taking it on the chin for so many other sinners.
From its first explosive chapter to the last stunning sentence, Bloody Martini is a tour-de-force that will force you to stay up very late, gazing deep into a black, yet profoundly illuminating, night.”
“This wry, extremely funny, character-driven novel will remind readers of classic L.A. noir… Kotzwinkle is sure to win new fans with this one”
“(A) riot of a novel… Martini’s efforts lead him into the underbelly of a dying little town… but… for all the desolation, one has a sense of a writer gleefully deploying a splendid gift for creating bright images that illuminate a moment without distracting from it.”
“Bloody Martini appears to be a crime novel on the surface, but there really is much more and much deeper than that… plenty of suspense, danger, violent confrontations, unexpected revelations, romance, and above all: originality… One can almost smell the atmosphere of the corrupt, crime-ridden, drug addicted, impoverished coal town where violence is a way of life…Here’s one of my favorite lines: ‘We Italians are cracked, but the Irish go us one better when it comes to settling a beef. With us, it’s just business; with them, it’s mysticism’.”
“A monk is called from his Mexican monastery back to his hometown, where he kicks major ass… A fitting memorial to the wisdom of the hero’s late grandfather: ‘I’m always angry. It saves time’.”
“Brother Thomas, the narrator of William Kotzwinkle’s winning “Bloody Martini,” is an American-born Benedictine monk in a Mexican monastery. When duty or conscience calls, he’s given leave to return to his hometown of Coalville, in the American Northeast, where he’s still known as Tommy Martini, the prodigal son of the local crime family… ‘You were raised by a crook, but you act like a saint,’ a gangster tells him. ‘Which is it?’ Tommy doesn’t have a definite answer, but he’s certain of one thing, ‘I might be done with Coalville, but it would never be done with me’.”
“Tommy returns to his hometown of Coalville, a foretaste of Hell. Russian pimps, hookers, drag queens, addicts of various persuasions – it’s Kotzwinkle country. Buy it now. ”
“Fans of this series will be praying that the next chapter arrives soon.”
“I can think of few to no living authors who are better than William Kotzwinkle.”