Synopsis Of

HORSESHOES

Hello, Everybody.

First let me thank all of you readers who have purchased or are still ordering my first novel, THE BAIT SHACK. I hope that you enjoyed reading the thing as much as I did writing it.

HORSESHOES consists of a novella and five (long) short stories, one of which is A RIVER TOO DISTANT that was previously published by Hampton Shorts. What follows is a rundown on the contents.

In the novella HORSESHOES, brilliant aeronautical engineer Bill Barnes is caught cheating on his wife Rosemary, a numbing experience precipitating a mid-life crisis that sends Bill in a fugue state to Dallas, Texas. Aboard the jet, he's intrigued by young scientist Judith Hume who sleeps through the landing in Dallas where Bill must disembark. But the mentally unhinged Bill plots to reencounter Judith.

In New York, Rosemary Barnes contacts the cagey but delusional Attorney at Law, Grant G. Grant, a long time friend of both Bill and Rosemary, to arrange her divorce. Riddled with conflict, Grant decides instead to secretly reunite his two friends by hiring Private Investigator Paula Royal to bring Bill back to New York City.

In Dallas, Bill hooks up with sexy and cunning young blonde Mexican, the tattooed Bobbie Gutierrez, who escorts him through a bizarre odyssey the irony of which relentlessly shreds the seat of his pants, a journey that ends with the execution of Bill's equally bizarre plot to sniff out Judith Hume at a science conference.

Throughout this hilarious drama we encounter the amiable but well-heeled, African-American prostitute Lenore, hired by Rosemary Barnes. Constantly undermining Grant G. Grant's well-intentioned reunion of Bill and Rosemary is Sally Yee, Grant's Chinese-American secretary who openly regards her boss as a simpleton.

Here is a quick summary of the five short stories.

In SWOOP, two U.S. Marine combat veterans concoct an outrageous plan to keep a young surfer from being shipped to Viet Nam.

In A DOLLAR TWENTY-FIVE PER MILE, a Long Island night-shift hacker eyes the beautiful day driver Althea from an immeasurable distance. One morning, he cashes in and drops to the back seat of her taxi. "California," he tells her.

A RIVER TOO DISTANT is about an African-American repo man who reclaims the Honda Civic of a white southerner abruptly fired from his job at the lumberyard. But Duck and his chainsaw are ready for him.

HECTOR'S DRUNKEN BUDDHA tells the story of an aimless, underachieving Latino who rediscovers his self-worth following a nightmarish weekend of migraine headaches, prescription drug abuse and the death of two close friends.

And in FRY COOK, a North Carolinian woman named Marnee tells the story of her otherwise gentle husband’s grotesque plan for revenge and its inevitable execution, an act that is both unnerving yet strangely reasonable.