Bad Day in a Banana Hammock by Stuart R. West

For a Listing of Stuart R. West's Books and Purchase Links, Click Here for Stuart R. West's Books We Love Author's Page!

 

 

About Stuart R. West
Author Stuart R. West, just like his smarty-pants books, thinks he's funny. Yet over the years, his family, teachers, bosses, and wife have told him it's just not so. You be the judge.

Bad Day in a Banana Hammock 

 Zach wakes up with no memory, no phone, and no clothes except his stripper g-string. And oh yeah! There’s that pesky naked dead guy in bed next to him. Problem is Zach's not gay. Or a murderer. At least, he doesn't think so.

Only one person can help him, his sister, Zora. Of course Zora's got problems of her own—she has three kids at home and is eight month's pregnant with the fourth. So she’s a bit cranky. But that’s not going to stop her from helping her brother.

With kids in tow, the siblings set how to find the true killer, clear Zach's name, and reassure Zach he's not gay.

Reviewers who DO find Stuart R. West's books funny! 

“An hilarious murder mystery romp. Ride along with Zach and Zora on this most entertaining of mysteries.”
-Heather Brainerd, author of the Jose Picada, P.I. mystery series.

“Bad Day in a Banana Hammock will have you wiping up tears of hysterical laughter.”
-Suzanne de Montigney, author of the Shadow of the Unicorn series.

Book #2 in the Zach and Zora Comic Mystery series!

And coming in October! The third book in the Zach and Zora Comic Mystery series: Nightmare of Nannies.

*Stuart R. West's Books We Love Author's Page: http://bookswelove.net/authors/west-stuart-r/
*Stuart R. West's (totally inconsequential) blog: Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley
*And the rest (like on Gilligan's Island): Facebook, Twitter
 

 

Chili Run by Stuart R. West

Run, don't walk (or at least click here), for thrills and laughs.

More about author Stuart R. West than you ever wanted to know!

Stuart R. West is a lifelong resident of Kansas, which he considers both a curse and a blessing. It's a curse because...well, it's Kansas. But it's great because…well, it’s Kansas. Lots of cool, strange and creepy things happen in the Midwest, and Stuart takes advantage of them in his work. Call it “Kansas Noir.” Stuart writes thrillers and mysteries usually tinged with humor, both for adult and young adult audiences.

Amazing Blurb-o-Rama!

When Wendell Worthy decides to blow off laundry for the day, he has no idea he'll soon be running across downtown Kansas City in his tighty-whities.

But a murderous, psychotic drug dealer has his brother and the ransom's a cup of chili that has to be delivered within two hours. The catch? There are rules in place: no rides, no money, no help. And Wendell has to do it in his underwear. Regardless of the rules, he knows he can’t go it alone.

The only person downtown who might help is Alicia. Too bad their one and only date ended in disaster. Wendell can run like the devil’s on his tail, and he’s gonna’ need to, because all sorts of hell’s about to break loose.

Chili Run: The perfect thriller for the reader on the go.

Where you, too, can add this book to your collection and proudly show it off on your coffee table!

*Stuart R. West's Books We Love Author's Page: http://bookswelove.net/authors/west-stuart-r/ 

*Amazon Chili Run page

*Stuart R. West's (totally inconsequential) blog: Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley

*And the rest (like on Gilligan's Island): Facebook, Twitter

Everything You Need to Know About Kansas by Stuart R. West

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SECRETS OF KANSAS

When I tell people I write books set in or around Kansas, I’m either hit with dumb jokes (“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.”) or derision (“Do they have electricity in Kansas?”). Then they ask “why Kansas?” Besides the first rule of write what you know, Kansas holds a lot of variety and interesting locales for a thriller writer. Really.

So instead of explaining it time after time, I’m going to condense it into a basic primer. Here’s everything you need to know about Kansas. You’re welcome.

FACT: Cowboys and Indians (at least the “traditional” Roy Rogers types) aren’t running rampant through our dirt streets. Back in my college days, I had a friend from Venezuela who told me when he first came to Kansas (and don’t ask me how a Venezuelan ended up there!), he expected shoot-outs in the streets, barroom brawls, and guys in one-piece long-johns with a back flap.

Folks, Kansas isn’t the old Wild West. Not anymore. And it’s not all farmlands either. For instance, I live in a suburb ten minutes away from downtown, Kansas City, Missouri (where my book Chili Run takes place), and ten minutes from the growing, thriving megalopolis of Overland Park, Kansas (where the Zach and Zora books take place). If I feel like going farmland/country (see Ghosts of Gannaway), I can hit that in about thirty to forty minutes.

See? Variety! Everything a thriller writer could possibly want (excluding shark tales, natch).

CLICK HERE FOR KANSAS DONE UP OLD-SCHOOL

 FACT: Kansas still has active pockets of the Ku Klux Klan and the mafia. Not really a selling point, just an unfortunate fact. And good-to-go villains should I ever need them. (Not everything’s up to date in Kansas City.)

FACT: It’s illegal to sing the alphabet on the streets at night in Topeka, Kansas. Don’t ask me why, but it’s true.  It’s also against the law to catch fish with your bare hands so take your penchant for noodling elsewhere, ‘cause it’s not wanted in Kansas. Here’s the best one: at one time it was against the law to serve ice cream on top of cherry pie. Thank goodness they changed that law.

FACT: Kansas is host to the world’s largest ball of twine, the world’s largest prairie dog, and possibly even more disturbing, the world’s largest hairball! That’s right! Kansas is known for its culture, too! (The hairball in question was taken from a cow’s stomach, weighing in at 55 pounds.)

FACT: Thank goodness plans to build a “Land of Oz” tourist attraction in Kansas were scrapped. Not only would it have done more damage to Kansas’s beleaguered reputation, but the last thing we needed were thousands of munchkins causing havoc in the streets. True riff-raff, I tell you.

FACT: Kansas alcohol laws are among the strictest in the United States. Prohibition lasted until 1948, longer than any other state. Until 2003, you couldn’t buy alcohol on a Sunday or have a glass of wine with dinner. Grocery stores still prohibit the sale of alcohol (unless it’s 3.2% beer). There’re some really strange, detailed laws governing alcohol. The legislators had a whole lotta’ time on their hands since they weren’t drinking.

FACT: Kansas led the way in feminism and civil rights! The first woman mayor in the United States was elected in Argonia, Kansas in 1887. And the first black woman to win an Academy Award was Kansan Hattie McDaniel for Gone With the Wind. Take that California and New York!

FACT: Kansas has the largest population of wild grouse in North America and I don’t even know what a “grouse” is.

FACT: Kansas is home to two “Big 12” colleges: The University of Kansas and Kansas State. Oddly enough, they hate one another. I should know. I lived through the KU/K-State riots in the ‘80’s. Just like in the old Wild West, people ran through the streets smashing windows and beating people. I guess not too much has changed after all.

There you have it, everything you need to know about Kansas and then some. And, of course, you can read all about the seedy, secret underbelly of Kansas in my books. 

I dunno…maybe I should just move.

CLICK FOR KOOKY KANSAS COZY COMEDY

From Bedroom to Book: Chili Run by Stuart R. West

From pillow to page...

Despite the rather enticing, come-hither title of this post (gotcha!), I'm not going to start writing erotica.

Rather, it's a round-about way to chat up my new comedy thriller, Chili Run.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, a kazillion times sorry!

Let's back up...

I have a vividly wild dream life, ranging from talking cat gangstas to bathrooms that eat people. After these strange dreams--during that oddly drifting, half-awake, half-asleep state of mind where the dreams still somewhat resemble logic--I think, "Hey! This would make a nifty book!"

Then, I wake up and think, "Man, what was I thinking?" No one wants to read an epic fantasy novel about a family of royal lions who fly 1930's fighter planes to save the kingdom. I shower, go about my day, the dreams drifting away like cottonwood in the wind.

This wasn't the case with Chili Run. This dream stuck with me, absurd though it was. I toyed with it, determined to find a way to make it work. I knew what the gist was; now I had the unenviable task of trying to make sense of it.

Well, here...the blurb says it best:

When Wendell Worthy decides to blow off laundry for the day, he has no idea he'll soon be running across downtown Kansas City in his tighty-whities. But a murderous, psychotic drug dealer has his brother and the ransom's a cup of chili that has to be delivered within two hours.  The catch? There are rules in place: no rides, no money, no help. And Wendell has to do it in his underwear. Regardless of the rules, he knows he can’t go it alone. The only person downtown who might help is Alicia. Too bad their one and only date ended in disaster. Wendell can run like the devil’s on his tail, and he’s gonna’ need to, because all sorts of hell’s about to break loose.

Okay, I know dream analysts are gonna have a field day with the subject matter. There's the requisite recurring nightmare of being caught out in public in your underwear (or nude). I pay it full tribute and absolutely own it.

Researching the book was a bear. To accurately describe downtown, Kansas City, my wife patiently drove me around so I could plot out Wendell's trajectory and, I hope, paint a unique, darkly comic, nightmare vista.

While there's a streak (ugh on the pun!) of humor running (again, ugh.) through the book, it's not as in-your-face, silly as my Zach and Zora comic mysteries, but it's a cousin of sorts. (There's even a quick connection for eagle-eyed readers to the aforementioned series, cementing it in the same universe). Here the stakes are higher and lives are hanging in the balance.

For me, the book's kind of an experiment. As Wendell runs through most of the book, I strove to keep the book moving along from one bizarre and dangerous adventure to the next. It's told in "real time," too, kinda' like the TV series 24 (while writing it, the soundtrack in my head consisted of that annoying "ka-ching, ka-chung" of 24's clock running down; plenty of aspirin were consumed).

What I thought was going to be an easy-peasy, cakewalk of a book turned into a huge struggle due to the above-mentioned reasons and more. I mean, honestly, how many different ways can you describe running?

Along the way, just like my protagonist's character, themes developed and grew, some understated, some not so much. It's about racism, writing, and above all--most surprising--it turned into a love story.

All in a little book about a guy running through public in his tighty-whities trying to save his dumb brother's life.

Chili Run: The perfect thriller for the reader on the go.

What Has Liam Neeson Wrought? by Stuart R. West

Laughs, mystery, no Liam Neeson, just a click away!

Liam Neeson has single-handedly revolutionized the plots of suspense thrillers. Not necessarily in a good way, either.

But, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. The shocking, highly researched results of my studies may surprise you...
 
Over the holidays, my wife and I were traveling to Oklahoma and got bored. On her IPad, I sought out the most critically acclaimed films of the year that we needed to see. That grew predictably dull. Yes, the movies are supposed to be good for you. So are lima beans, doesn't make 'em any more tasty. So for grins, we ventured over into the worst reviewed films of the year.

Much more fun. And very eye-opening.

Several actors popped up three or four times each. And none of these films ever made it into theaters. I got excited.

Nicolas Cage! Bruce Willis! John Travolta! Pierce Brosnan (I always confuse him with the Perfect Strangers "Belki" guy.)! These actors...several academy award nominated...apparently have shifted into direct to DVD territory. The winds of change.

Oddly enough, all of them appear in a crummy movie with plots that go like this: "Rock Hardguy is an ex Navy Seal. Bad guys have kidnapped his son. Rock won't stop 'til he gets his son back. And cause all kinds of mayhem and destruction--call it collateral damage--doing so."

Thank you, Liam Neeson! This guy cornered the market, made revenge a genre unto itself. And he just won't quit. There's even a TV series based on the Taken movie series. Seriously, how many times can one father's kids be kidnapped? 

The above-mentioned actors are all prancing onto Liam's bloody turf. Keanu Reeves, of all people, got into the act, violently enacting revenge over his dead dog ("Whoa. Dude you killed my dog.").

First of all: kids, if your dad's Liam Neeson, seek emancipation. Second, are people really watching all of these ridiculous revenge films? Is this the future of suspense books? Personally, as a parent, I can't think of anything less entertaining than reading about a kidnapped child.

And when did Liam Neeson become a tough guy? Wasn't he kinda' a Shakespearean, hoity-toity actor, all up in art and what-all? What's next, the brothers from Fraser in a Death Wish remake?

Anyway, my wife and I tried to watch some of these awful movies. Wine helped, but didn't quite diffuse the stink. We cringed while Kevin Spacey turned into a cat. We sighed as John Travolta played a redneck power and light man whose brother is electrocuted in a tragic line accident (and do I have to tell you he raised his arms in the rain and screamed, "Nooooooo!"?). I slept when Nic Cage flew a plane while the rest of the world was whisked away by the Rapture. And, of course, the endless revenge flicks.

So thank you, Liam. Thanks a whole lot!

Wholesome fun even Grandma won't hate (totally).