cover image Brown

Brown

James Polster. Longstreet Press, $16.45 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56352-195-9

A powerful mix of outrageous coincidence propels this bold, hilarious, essentially unclassifiable story. In the course of a few pages, East Coast sports scribe McGee Brown moves west to San Francisco, becomes a bogus psychologist (abetted by a friend who's a real one) and then a rookie shamus. As Dr. Brown, he meets with two patients: one is a troubled young woman who says her filthy-rich financier husband is trying to kill her; the other is a former TV producer who has adopted the persona of his 1960s series superhero, DangerMan. Brown turns investigator when he's hired by the newly widowed financier to find his missing daughter. Other colorful characters (many of whom are other than they first appear) mark a manic story line filled with car chases, shoot-outs and hedonistic delights; they include a robed priest named Rana Krishna, a chunky female sportswriter, bartenders with healing powers and disgruntled cops. Polster (A Guest in the Jungle) fits somewhere between Hiaasen and Vonnegut. (May)