The Way of All Fish

Zusatztext "Martha Grimes is back with a deliciously hilarious send-up of the book business. The Way of All Fish nails all the foul matter of publishing dead on! and is a smashingly great read as well." Informationen zum Autor Bestselling author Martha Grimes is the author of more than thirty books, including twenty-two Richard Jury mysteries. She is also the author of Double Double , a dual memoir of alcoholism written with her son. The winner of the 2012 Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award, Grimes lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Klappentext Includes excerpt from Vertigo 42, also by Martha Grimes.The Way of All Fish 1 They came in, hidden in coats, hats pulled over their eyes, two stubby hoods like refugees from a George Raft film, icy-eyed and tight-lipped. From under their overcoats, they swung up Uzis hanging from shoulder holsters and sprayed the room back and forth in watery arcs. There were twenty or so customers—several couples, two businessmen in pinstripes, a few solo diners who had been sitting, some now standing, some screaming, some crawling crablike beneath their tables. Oddly, given all that cordite misting the air like cheap champagne, the customers didn’t get shot; it was the owner’s aquarium, situated between the bar and the dining area, that exploded. Big glass panels slid and slipped more like icebergs calving than glass breaking, the thirty- or forty-odd fish within pouring forth on their little tsunami of water and flopping around in the puddles on the floor. A third of them were clown fish. All of that took four seconds. In the next four seconds, Candy and Karl had their weapons drawn—Karl from his shoulder holster, Candy from his belt—Candy down on one knee, Karl standing. Gunfire was exchanged before the two George Rafts backed toward the door and, still firing, turned and hoofed it fast through the dark. Candy and Karl stared at each other. “Fuck was that?” exclaimed Candy, rising from his kneeling position. They holstered their weapons as efficiently as they’d drawn them, like the cops they were not. They checked out the customers with their usual mercurial shrewdness, labeling them for future reference (if need be): a far table, the two suits with cells now clamped to their busy ears, calling 911 or their stockbrokers; an elderly couple, she weeping, he patting her; two tables shoved together that had been surrounded by a party of nuts probably from Brooklyn or Jersey, hyenalike in their braying laughter, all still under the table; a couple of other business types with Bluetooth devices stationed over their ears, talking to each other or their Tokyo counterparts; a blond woman, or girl, sitting alone eating spaghetti and reading something, book or magazine; a dark-haired woman with a LeSportsac bag slung over the back of her chair, who’d been talking on her Droid all the while she ate; and a party of four, girls’ night out, though they’d never see girlhood again. Twenty tables, all in all, a few empty. All of that ruin in under a minute. The Clownfish Café was nothing special, a dark little place in a narrow street off Lexington, its cavelike look the effect of bad lighting. A few wall sconces were set in the stone walls, apparently meant to simulate a coral reef; candles, squat and fat, seeming to begrudge the room their light, were set in little iron cages with wire mesh over their tops, their flames hardly flickering, as if light were treasure they refused to give up. They might as well have been at the bottom of the sea. Now the brightly colored fish, clown fish, tangs, angelfish of neon blue and sun-bright yellow, were drawing last breaths until the...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Martha Grimes
• Verlag: Scribner USA
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 07.10.2014
• EAN: 9781476723976
• ISBN: 978-1-4767-2397-6
• Abmessung: 140 mm x 210 mm x 23 mm
• Thema: Belletristik > Erzählende Literatur