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Fred Zackel · 07-26-2010, 11:32 AM

(Here's the Time magazine review. Hey, would they lie? And you can buy it for only $2.99 at the Kindle store.)

COCAINE AND BLUE EYES
by Fred Zackel;
Coward McCann & Geoghegan;
264 pages

Drugs and thugs, a missing person and a backchatting investigator also dominate Cocaine and Blue Eyes. Fred Zackel's sprightly first novel, set mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, combines the story of a Pacific Heights dynasty, corporate shenanigans, Chinatown gangs, a spectrum of sex, aging flower children, Mafia money and the houseboat life in Sausalito. The result is as nerve-rattling as a full-throttle auto chase from Grant Avenue to Fisherman's Wharf.

At the outset a sleazy young dope dealer vainly attempts to hire Investigator Michael Brennen to locate blue-eyed Dani, his missing girlfriend and meal ticket. Brennen has just about decided to retire from the shamus game. However, when the dealer shows up mysteriously dead, the down-at-heels p.i. takes on the posthumous assignment. Dani, it develops, belongs to a wealthy Faulknerian family held together by booze, barbiturates, bitterness, incest and greed. Brennen finally finds the girl (also mysteriously dead) and discovers that the family business is being run by a homosexual Chinatown lawyer and his epicene "nephew." The nephew is quietly siphoning off cash to finance a cocaine-smuggling operation, and the tale moves to a bewildering but believable showdown. His publisher reports that Sausalito-based Zackel is working on a second novel, which on the evidence should be as welcome as San Francisco's cracked-crab season.

—Michael Demarest
Time Magazine
Monday, Nov. 20, 1978

(BTW, CINDERELLA AFTER MIDNIGHT was the second Brennen novel. It's also on Kindle and smashwords.)

Please
click here to reach the Kindle
Shop.

07-26-2010, 11:32 AM	#17
Fred Zackel Connoisseur Posts: 66 Karma: 50000 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: none	(Here's the Time magazine review. Hey, would they lie? And you can buy it for only $2.99 at the Kindle store.) COCAINE AND BLUE EYES by Fred Zackel; Coward McCann & Geoghegan; 264 pages Drugs and thugs, a missing person and a backchatting investigator also dominate Cocaine and Blue Eyes. Fred Zackel's sprightly first novel, set mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, combines the story of a Pacific Heights dynasty, corporate shenanigans, Chinatown gangs, a spectrum of sex, aging flower children, Mafia money and the houseboat life in Sausalito. The result is as nerve-rattling as a full-throttle auto chase from Grant Avenue to Fisherman's Wharf. At the outset a sleazy young dope dealer vainly attempts to hire Investigator Michael Brennen to locate blue-eyed Dani, his missing girlfriend and meal ticket. Brennen has just about decided to retire from the shamus game. However, when the dealer shows up mysteriously dead, the down-at-heels p.i. takes on the posthumous assignment. Dani, it develops, belongs to a wealthy Faulknerian family held together by booze, barbiturates, bitterness, incest and greed. Brennen finally finds the girl (also mysteriously dead) and discovers that the family business is being run by a homosexual Chinatown lawyer and his epicene "nephew." The nephew is quietly siphoning off cash to finance a cocaine-smuggling operation, and the tale moves to a bewildering but believable showdown. His publisher reports that Sausalito-based Zackel is working on a second novel, which on the evidence should be as welcome as San Francisco's cracked-crab season. —Michael Demarest Time Magazine Monday, Nov. 20, 1978 (BTW, CINDERELLA AFTER MIDNIGHT was the second Brennen novel. It's also on Kindle and smashwords.) Please click here to reach the Kindle Shop.