[Truman Kicklighter Mystery 02] • Crash Course

Truman Kicklighter, the eccentric, not-so-retired hero of Lickety-Split, returns, and this time he's got to put the brakes on an insurance scam with a deadly payoff.Truman's twentysomething friend Jackleen Canaday thought she'd bought the car of her dreams, but the ink is hardly dry on the contract before she realizes it's a lemon. Unfortunately, the suave huckster who sold it to her refuses to take it back. When she stops by his office one evening to argue about it, she's shocked to discover his bloody body in the back of a black Corvette. She's even more shocked, however, when the cops arrive and there's no body to be found.

Enter Truman, who hates to see a friend cheated and hates even more to pass up a juicy puzzle. Mixing it up with a motley crew of big-time drug dealers, small-time scam artists, and the crowd that gathers daily for the blue-plate special at the Fountain of Youth Hotel, Truman follows a twisted trail that leads him from the dealership to biker bars to Tampa's tawdry strip joints ... and quite possibly to his own demise.

"A sprightly mystery set amid the palms and Pepcid gulpers of Florida's Gulf Coast retirement community.... The novel is unswervingly suspenseful and carefully plotted, with an appealing cast of plausible, if quirky, supporting characters". -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution