Dead Easy

Flap Tucker #5

by Phillip DePoy

She lied. He knows. Sometimes the truth can kill.

Dead Easy
Threatening notes. Grisly packages promising worse to come. On a dark street outside a nightclub called Easy, a man is gunned down--by a handsome killer everyone thought was dead. Someone is stalking club owner Dalliance Oglethorpe, someone from a past she thought she had left behind. Flap Tucker, Dally's knight in not-so-shining armor, prides himself on seeing through reality's illusions. But what he discovers about his longtime love will catch him blind.

There is a lot Flap doesn't know--and a lot he has to find out, soon, about himself and the woman he thought he knew best. But Dally wants Flap to keep his distance. She thinks he may have had a hand in murder. And Flap has reason to suspect Dally herself. If they are to make it through the long, dark night, Flap must find the real killer, a real motive, and the real truth behind Dally's lost years--and the secrets she has never been able to reveal--before it's too late.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 10, 2000

About the author

Phillip DePoy has published short fiction, poetry, and criticism in Story, The Southern Poetry Review, Xanadu, Yankee, and other magazines. He is currently the creative director of the Maurice Townsend Center for the Performing Arts at the State University of West Georgia, and has had many productions of his plays at regional theaters throughout the south. He is the recipient of numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the state of Georgia, the Georgia Council for the Arts, the Arts Festival of Atlanta, the South Carolina Council for the Arts, etc. He composed the scores for the regional Angels in America and other productions and has played in a numerous jazz and folk bands. In his work as a folklorist he has collected songs and stories throughout Georgia and has worked with John Burrison, the foremost folklorist in the south and with Joseph Cambell.

Reviews

[Bonnye Reed]

MyNextRead99

[Bruce Balfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

Sparkling dialog , often containing interesting and curious thoughts and ideas. I just finished the 5th in the series and enjoyed all of them. Great and creative writing and engaging storylines.

[Linda Branham · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I understand this is the last in the Flap and Dally series.
Secrets between Flap and Dally...
At four in the morning, Dally, owner of the Easy nightclub owner, calls her friend since childhood, Flap Tucker, to rush over immediately. One of his three rules of life is to come when Dally calls. He quickly arrives and takes a strange looking package from Dally. Flap opens it to see a severed hand with a note about this being the first installment. A stunned Dally tells Flap it means nothing and to stay out of it.
Instead of having Flap, a renowned investigator, make inquiries, Dally hires Jersey Jakes, a risky proposition to say the least. Meanwhile, an obnoxious patron harangues Dally at her club. Unable to stay away or leave as he has done numerous times when the commitment level seemed imminent, Flap begins his own investigation, which takes him to their mutual hometown of Invisible, Georgia in the southern side of the state. He begins to piece together her years when he fled her for the safety of the Army, not quite understanding the danger of the final installment.
As usual, DePoy's characters are wittily conceived and drawn. His plot twists are delightfully innovative. His style is filled with excellent craftsmanship, humor, sparklingly clear prose, and great concern for his readers. And I loved his snappy dialogue.

[Brownie55]

I enjoyed the writing style and the main character. It had twists and turns as well.
The last two paragraphs were in the 'lesson learned' catagory. In part..
One of the main things that makes us imperfect is our constant impatience with the status quo. We want change. We're restless without it. Maybe it's because we only truly understand the world by contrast. It goes on to relate the glory of sunrise against the terror of a moonless night, the love of a downpour after a drought. Contrast of opposites, including why God divided day from night, land from water, and last but not least Man from Woman. And lastly the point of why some of us like mysteries... the contrast of knowing and not knowing, questions and answers, doubt and discovery. I loved this part best

[Roxann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first Flap Tucker book. It was an easy read and very entertaining. The main character Flap finds out that his long time friend and lover is married. Well she was to the guy that was murdered.He has some kind of osychic ability that helps him solve cases. (He is something of a private detective.) Very well written story with great characters and believeable plot. Dialogue was at times full of humor. I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading others in this series.

[Susan]

In my version too many missing spaces between the words - made it difficult to read and so I had to give up
A NetGalley book