ABOUT THE BOOK

Richard Hudson is a used-car salesman with a pimp's understanding of the ways in which women (and men) are most vulnerable. He sees himself as a walking allegory, the confidence man as work of art.

Hudson lives with his beautiful mother, her blacklisted movie-director husband (twenty years her junior), and an over-sexed teenage step-sister. He feels driven to make a movie and, when it's cut and shifted to TV he extracts a terrifying revenge.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Darkly funny throughout, Willeford deploys a dreamy causality all his own, simultaneously creepy and chirpy' - Sunday Times

'Better than Hall and Hiaasen and as good as Elmore Leonard at his best' - Time Out

'The Pope of Psycho-Pulp' - Time Out

'the master of cynical Florida crime fiction' - The Times

'a crime writers' crime writer lionised by peers such as Elmore Leonard and Lawrence Block ... dangerous indeed, with a bitter humour, black as it comes but also so sweet' - The Herald

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford.' - Elmore Leonard

ESSENTIAL TRIVIA

Willeford's wartime career saw him serving as a tank commander in the U.S. army, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and being awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.
He said of his fellow soldiers - "A good half of the men you deal with in the Army are psychopaths. There's a pretty hefty overlap between the military population and the prison population..."