Kaleidoscope

Jack Romaine's addiction to speakeasies and cards has landed him in a tight spot-one which he can't use his good looks to get out of. With debts to dangerous men piling up, he becomes an unwilling recruit for a Cincinnati gangster needing an expendable tool to recover his stolen cash and railroad bonds. Unfortunately, Jack is not the only man on the trail of the stolen money-he is in competition with a sadistic killer who relishes the carnage he leaves in his wake. The trail leads south to Kaleidoscope; a 'beddy' for freaks during the months when carnival is out-of-season.

From Publishers WeeklyHapless, handsome Jack Romaine, a small-time gambler and drinker in 1929 Cincinnati, tracks a mysterious woman who's the key to a hidden fortune in Wimberley's evocative mystery. Hauled before gangster Oliver Bladehorn, Jack is given a simple chore that will cancel his debts: pick up a woman being released from prison who will lead him to the prize in cash and stocks. On a trail rife with cruelty, violence and murder, he finds himself in Tampa, Fla., at Kaleidoscope, a beddy where carnies rest between gigs and a place for people who don't fit in anywhere else. Jack goes to work as a brodie (a gopher) in the hopes of getting a lead, while trying to avoid the brutal Arno Becker, who's after the same fortune. Best known for his Florida-based Bear Raines series (Pepperfish Keys, etc.), Wimberley invests both Jack and the carnie freaks with distinct personalities and common dignity. This vividly captured subculture has its own grotesque charm and beauty. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the AuthorDarryl Wimberley has authored two critically acclaimed literary works, A Tinker's Damn and The King of Colored Town, along with the Gulf Coast noir series featuring Barrett Raines, Speical Agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement: A Rock and a Hard Place, Dead Man's Bay, Strawman's Hammock, and Pepperfish Keys. All are available from The Toby Press. Wimberley has also garnered three feature film credits. The screenplay for Kleidoscope won Grand Prize Winner in a competition sponsered some years ago by Fade In magazineand is presently under option. The author and screenwriter resides with his family in Austin Texas.