Business

A darkly comic novel about a man lured from the greeting card business to a dizzying world of angry circus performers, unscrupulous cosmetic surgeons, murderous dope dealers, and rock n’ roll singers at the end of their tether. Paul Wint quits the greeting card business under the spell of Hornsmith, an ailing crook running a scam on Dr. Courtney, a cosmetic surgeon, and Simon Trang, a shadowy narc. Hornsmith says it’s business, but it’s really more a blackmail job. And it’s not working out. While Hornsmith’s distracted by his intestinal cancer, Courtney’s gangsters plot to kill the deal. Soon, Paul can’t see his way for the complications in this business. His obsession with Marla, a singer with The Raging Socket, doesn’t help. After a mysterious fire destroys his apartment building, Paul skips town driving Marla’s drug dealing lover’s ’68 Firebird. His neighbour, Akinwole Mulumba, a homesick Nigerian accountant tags along. Only when calamity strikes on a dark desert road does Paul find refuge with a reclusive Iraqi war vet turned Buddhist monk and a spunky Cambodian waitress.