“You knew my mother?”
“Not really. I only met her that once.”
“When was that, Birdie?”
Birdie Grackle sucked his dentures for a moment and then said, “The night I done killed her.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (MAR 7, 2014)

Justin Chase has adjusted to his life as a barkeep (and the Zen lifestyle) after several years of living without his mother and the man he believed murdered her, his father. However, a strange man, going by the odd name of Birdie Grackle, enters the bar where Justin works and tells him that Justin’s father did not murder his mother. He alleges that Birdie himself murdered her at the request of a woman who hired him to do it. Birdie says he doesn’t know who paid him but that for $10,000 he will track her down. Justin does not agree to pay Birdie and does not immediately believe what Birdie is telling him. With his brother Frank’s urging, Justin visits his father in prison for the first time since his father was sent there 6 years ago.

After meeting with his father, Justin decides to do some investigating of his own. He hires his friend Jody to follow Birdie to see what he can learn. Jody doesn’t really find anything useful, just that Birdie likes to drink and doesn’t have much money. Justin looks into the various people in his parents’ life that may have wanted his mother dead. Justin knew that his father was having an affair with Annie Overmeyer, someone who may have wanted his father all for herself. Annie at first appears to be a likely candidate but Justin is not sure after meeting her and actually starts to feel some attraction for the woman. Annie appears to have moved on from his father, although generally with one night stands, but maybe her attraction with Justin is different. His father also tries to convince Justin that he and his mother had an open marriage which seems to be confirmed when he reads old letters that his brother gives him that implies that his mother had had an affair as well. This leads Justin down other paths to people in his parents’ life to try to find out if his father is in fact innocent.

Although Justin studied to be a lawyer, he was just fine being a good barkeep. However, he has to rethink his life along with his thoughts about his father. Many of the other people in Justin’s life are stressed with the possibility that his father is not the killer and that his father may return (which is not necessarily what everyone wants). Lashner’s characters are so realistic that you can really understand how and why they react to the changing circumstances as Justin unravels what appears to be the truth about his mother’s murderer. Of course, Lashner throws in a few twists to not make everything quite be as they are first presented which makes for an even more enjoyable book.

The Barkeep is told mostly through the third person perspective of Justin Chase, although Lashner also occasionally presents the book from the perspective of other characters such as Annie Overmeyer. This gives the reader a little more perspective and also allows the reader to know a bit more about the characters and the truth before it is learned by Justin.

I really enjoyed this book as Lashner presents realistic, different and often flawed characters that are placed in difficult situations. Some of the other characters that Lashner includes are a couple of attorneys (Lashner is an attorney himself, after all), including the attorney who wonders if she was right in putting Justin’s father in prison. Another interesting character is Derek, a man with limited mental capabilities but with the ability to open any locked door and who uses violence to solve his problems.

William Lashner has had success with his Victor Carl stories, but lately he’s been writing stand-alone books such as The Barkeep. I’ve read most of the Victor Carl books (and am looking forward to the next Victor Carl novel, Bagmen, due out later in 2014) and I really enjoy them; this was the first non-series book of Lashner’s that I’ve read. The Barkeep certainly has some of the same writing style and well-written somewhat flawed characters that I enjoyed in the Victor Carl books, but it does not quite have the same amount of humor (which likely would have been out of place). The local Philadelphia area color is also a bit less obvious. However, no one will be disappointed in this fast-paced and enjoyable book by William Lashner.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1,497 readers
PUBLISHER:	Thomas & Mercer (February 1, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	William Lashner
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: A Killer’s Kiss Falls the Shadow Fatal Flaw

Victor Carl Series:

• Hostile Witness (1995)
• Bitter Truth (1997) (Originally titled Veritas)
• Fatal Flaw (2003)
• Past Due (2004)
• Falls the Shadows (2005)
• Marked Man (2006)
• A Killer’s Kiss (2007)
• Bagmen (August 2014)

Stand-alone:

• Blood and Bone (2009)
• The Accounting (2013)
• The Barkeep (February 2014)

Writing as Tyler Knox:

• Kockroach (2006)

“Rocco, I’m in Vegas.”
“Bullshit.”
“I told you guys that the other night.”
“Maybe Jerry remembers, hang on.” Rocco passed the phone to one of the Jerrys, who dropped it.
“Shit!” I heard two people say together.
“Hello?” Jerry Number Two said. “Who’s this?”
“Jerry, it’s me, Duff. I’m in—“
“You comin’ in?”
“Jerry! Listen to me. Just shut up for a second and listen!”
“Hello?” Jerry said.
“Jerry, get the guys to come out to Vegas. I have a…er…a house all to myself—you guys can stay for free.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (DEC 26, 2013)

Although Duffy Dombroski was getting heat from his supervisor to go to a required training program so that he could perform better at his social worker job, Duffy jumped at the chance to go to Las Vegas as a sparring partner for Boris Rusakov, the Russian heavyweight champion. Duffy even somehow finds a way to bring his dog Al on the plane and he convinces all his friends but his trainer Smitty to go with him. Duffy doesn’t care that his doctor is worried about his head injuries; Duffy just wants the chance to go to Vegas. Once he’s in Vegas though, things don’t go the way he hoped and he ends up in some unanticipated situations. Tom Schreck provides an entertaining book with lots of adventures, including some difficult and often touching moments with humor and entertaining moments, primarily provided by his basset hound Al and Duffy’s bar friends.

When Duffy arrives, he finds that he’s not staying at one of the Vegas strip hotels, but rather a legal brothel outside the Vegas city limits. He does have a nice room cleaned every day by the young maid with beauty in looks and voice, a convenient bar and working women that he only visits to have interesting conversations (really). Unfortunately, Boris Rusakov is not interested in following the customary professional sparring practices and is only interested in hitting Duffy hard and often, especially when Duffy gets in a few good hits on the champion.

This is not really a serial killer book, but Schreck includes one that almost seems added after he wrote the main part of the book. Mexicans, primarily ones in Las Vegas illegally, are being killed without any clues to who or why. The reader gets the killer’s perspective, especially how much he hates the poor Mexicans, without knowing who it is until the end. Although it adds some suspense to the story, in a way it is a distraction to the what is really a story of Duffy’s adventures in Las Vegas – the Russian boxer, the Latino boxers he befriends, the relationships with the brothel prostitutes and of course his usual friends who are there primarily for humor and to help him out when he gets in trouble.

I picked up a copy of this book as part of my book bag at Bouchercon this year in Albany. Tom Schreck lives in the Albany area and this series typically takes place there, so it made sense that they would give out a lot of these books. Unfortunately,  I didn’t get a chance to meet Schreck or attend the panel he was on.

I’ve never read any of the other books in this series of which this is the fourth; I certainly did not have any trouble following along with the story. I’m sure I would have picked up a little bit more on Duffy’s friends and how and why they acted the way they did and maybe had a better understanding of Duffy’s interests, but I didn’t feel slighted. I will, however, read some of the prior books in the series as I really enjoyed Duffy Dombrowski, Schreck’s style and all the various new and recurring characters in this book. Of course, this book and presumably all the books in the series are based a lot on boxing and that may be a turnoff for some readers. However, with Tom Schreck being a world championship boxing official, he’s very qualified and is certainly writing about something he knows well. He also provides the accurate detail without boring even those who have no interest in boxing.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 108 readers
PUBLISHER:	Thomas & Mercer (May 15, 2012)
REVIEWER:	Check Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Official website for Tom Schreck
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More boxing: Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson More as Vegas fun: Dice Angel by Brian Rouff

Bibliography:

Duffy Dombrowski – Ghetto Social Worker:

• On the Ropes (2007)
• TKO (2008)
• Out Cold (2009)
• The Vegas Knockout (2012)

Also:

• Planter’s Punch (2009) (written with J.A. Konrath)

TJ Dunn:

• Getting Dunn (2012)

Anthology:

• Duffy to the Rescue (2011)