Split to Splinters

by Max Everhart

Jim Honeycutt, a vigorous Hall of Famer who still hurls 90 MPH fast balls in his 50s, is missing his three-hundredth career win baseball, and an anonymous note points to his daughters. Cherchez la femme, or so they say. In this case, there isn't just one female involved, but six, and they are all suspects. Four lovely daughters, their seductive mother, and their mother's best friend.

Eli Sharpe, an ex pro-baseball player based in Asheville, North Carolina, who investigates cases related to his former profession, sets out to delve into the complicated family dynamics of the Honeycutt clan. Other than the daughters, there are the various men who trail after them as well as the washed-out writer who lives in the Hall of Famer's basement, supposedly writing his biography.

The culprit has to be someone in Jim's circle. So how difficult can it be to expose them? Even Eli, with his already close acquaintance with human treachery, isn't prepared for what he will find.

264 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2015

About the author

MAX EVERHART is the author of the Eli Sharpe series, including GO GO GATO, ED, NOT EDDIE, and SPLIT TO SPLINTERS, which is a finalist for the Shamus Award in the Best P.I. Original Paperback category. He also wrote ALPHABET LAND, a gritty crime thriller featuring The Rook, a problem-solver with a strong moral compass. His most recent book is a collection of short stories called ALL THE DIFFERENT WAYS LOVE CAN FEEL. Find him on the web at http://www.maxeverhart.com.

PRAISE FOR Eli Sharpe series:

From its hero to its milieu to its eccentric, three-dimensional characters, Max Everhart’s GO GO GATO is a terrific read. The North Carolina minor-league baseball scene feels authentic and beloved, and I was always rooting for protagonist Eli Sharpe. The best news is that this excellent mystery is first in a series. Fans of Harlan Coben will want to check out Max Everhart, a major new talent!

–Steve Ulfelder, Edgar finalist author of WOLVERINE BROS. FREIGHT & STORAGE

Go Go Gato is the debut entry in a promising new series by Max Everhart, and it’s a fast-paced, entertaining tale. Eli Sharpe is a very appealing character who combines just the right amounts of wit, humor, intelligence and courage, and it will be fun to watch him in action as the series continues to grow and develop.

–James L. Thane, author of UNTIL DEATH and NO PLACE TO DIE

Reviews

[Tony Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following the embarrassing media circus generated by the outcome of his previous case, private eye Eli Sharpe wants nothing more than to keep his head down and lose himself in a caseload well-lubricated with slugs of George Dickel. But when a wealthy, former all-star pitcher hires our bezoot-suited hero to investigate the theft of a prize ball, Sharpe soon finds himself navigating a moral labyrinth of bad women. An adulterous wife, a richer-than-God mistress, a techno-savvy tween, an emaciated vamp of a school teacher, a prehensile wannabe Warren Buffett and a wishy-washy sexpot - all of these women may be what Jim Honeycutt calls "family", but - as Sharpe is quick to realize - each of these colorfully rendered femme fatales are vultures ready to pick their patriarch's bones clean. Throw in a meathead boyfriend, a vehicularly homicidal lover and a washed-up, pistol-packing hack writer who lives in the basement of the vast Honeycutt estate (even comes with its on baseball diamond), and what you have is a strong second mystery by a young author growing increasingly more confident in his personal take on the PI genre. And though this may be an almost entirely bloodless novel, Everhart doesn't shirk away from the dark corners of the heart or the simple truth that the things you do to the ones you love can do worse damage than any bullet.

[E.Michael Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharpe keeps getting sharper!

I very much enjoyed Max Everhart's first Eli Sharpe mystery, "Go Go Gato." I absolutely love this second offering in a series that I hope takes us into many extra-inning thrillers starring pro baseball player-turned-private investigator, Eli Sharpe. Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Honeycutt's 300th-win baseball has gone missing. Honeycutt hires Sharpe to recover this highly-prized possession.
The opening scene is classic: the near-miss ballplayer Eli Sharpe facing one of his childhood idols, the Hall of Fame hurler on his personal baseball field. It's Jim Hunnycutt's way of testing the mettle of the young private investigator who's been recommended to him. After a knockdown pitch aimed at Sharpe's head, Sharpe lines a blazer right back up the middle which causes Honeycutt to hit the deck. Ah, the sweet taste of payback! Our stand-up PI is hired.
The extended and highly dysfunctional Honeycutt family proves to be a major stumbling block in Sharpe's investigation. Sir Walter Scott's oft quoted line from "Marmion" fits the Honeycutts to a T: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" Curve ball after curve ball from Jim's four beautiful but conniving daughters, and his flirtatious wife, keep Eli Sharpe guessing which signs they flash are real and which are decoys. And when Eli discovers that two of Honeycutt's daughters have set up an almost foolproof method to embezzle money from their father, the stew thickens. As in Everhart's "Go Go Gato," the supporting cast members are beautifully fleshed out -- no cardboard, one dimensional characters to be found within the covers of this book. We also get some important and interesting back story piecemealed throughout the story-line that adds to the continuing growth of our flawed but straight-shooting protagonist.
In Eli Sharpe, author Max Everhart has created a character who jumps off the pages and becomes a real person you would love to know. Think Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, or Dashiell Hammett's incomparable Sam Spade. I'm not saying that Everhart or Sharpe are in their league -- yet. But this young author has a bright future ahead if he continues to build on the solid foundation he's laid with the first two Eli Sharpe mysteries. I'm very much looking forward to Sharpe #3, "Ed, Not Eddie" as I've heard good things about it through the mystery grapevine. "Split To Splinters" is a solid and entertaining mystery, and one that I highly recommend!

[Jack Remick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when a writer:
knows how to put a mystery together;
knows how to set the plot (a seemingly insignificant theft of a baseball);
knows how to run subplots (a suicide, two long-running love affairs, a couple of get rich and famous schemes, a patsy, and a couple of red herrings);
and knows how to intertwine the plot and subplots to give the reader a thick, textured, complex story.
All of this, Everhart does with ease—starting with that great American Object so full of hope and desperation—a baseball signed by a hero.
But the easy reading is a deception. Easy reading masks the complexity of this story, and Split to Splinters is a multi-layered study in hero worship, crazy families, that very human emotion—jealousy—and a peculiar American disease called “celebrity seeking.”
Everhart mixes in four American fixations—baseball, money, an obsession with time, and whiskey. He stirs in a suicide, a dash of sex as a teaser to keep you reading. He adds iconic American beauties, lusty girls, aging writers, geriatric mentors, and a worn out pawn-broker to get the cast of Split to Splinters. But there’s nothing formulaic about this book. The expected ingredients are there, but at its core, this is a book about time and mirror images. “Eli checked his Seiko…It was 10:02 a.m.; He checked his Seiko: 11:39 p.m.; By 12:44 a.m., Eli was back in his apartment; Eli entered the principal’s office at precisely 7:45 a.m.”
Something’s going on with time, folks, and it’s not pretty.
Eli Sharpe—Everhart’s PI and literary scion of Chandler and Hammett (Everhart references both icons with great finesse: “The house…was, indeed, a mansion—a custom-built new construction home complete with a wraparound porch, lots of large windows, and a weathervane atop the chimney.”)—comes from a dysfunctional family of dopers, thieves, housebreakers, and hippy misfits. Eli’s involvement with the Honeycutt family dredges up his own lamentable past and that past plays into the story. He’s been engaged five times—but he can’t quite say I Do. That busted, hippy past keeps slamming his head into the marital wall and he can’t pull the trigger, he doesn’t get the girl. As he digs into the Honeycutt den of lust, jealousy, and iniquity his decision weighs on him, his past boils up around him, and he lets you know that he’s broken, emotionally wrecked, and he really wants to be alone. At his center, Eli Sharpe just doesn’t like people very much. He wants to, but he just can’t trust anyone. Here, Everhart shows his roots. The American PI is a lone wolf. He can try, but he can’t connect. He’ll always go off to his cave where he’ll spend time licking his wounds.
Everhart knows his baseball and he knows his mysteries and he knows the mind of the sleuth. Split to Splinters is first rate fiction.
This is a fun book for PI fans who have been waiting for the good stuff.
Jack Remick co-author: The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Jim Honeycutt, who can still hurl 90 MPH fastballs, is missing his 300th career-win baseball. Sharpe, an ex-pro, digs into it.

[M.J. Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Split to Splinters” by Max Everhart is a karmic explosion. This mystery begins with the theft of a career defining baseball from Jim Honeycutt, American athletic icon, superstar in baseball. He is the man with everything who is rich, controls his spoiled daughters, is strong, handsome, and has a beautiful narcissistic wife. His wealth and the circumstances surrounding it has created a dysfunctional family that looks great on the surface but hides a festering sore of competition and dislike between family members and an alcoholic writer who doesn’t write and lives in the basement of his mansion. Honeycutt, the American hero, suffers from hubris and an explosive temper. In a delayed attempt to improve the character of his daughters he changes his will and this leads to further kinks in family dynamics and the plot. The characters are attention-grabbing and well developed. P.I. Eli Sharpe is quick with the smart-ass comments so there is plenty of entertaining dialogue as well as a hilarious, useless fight between him and one of the characters that has the feel of a hallucination, something I noticed in another Everhart book. The motives and actions of the characters make the reader think about such things in other contexts as well. It is easy to see why “Split to Splinters” was a finalist for the Shamus Award in the Best P.I. Original Paperback category.

[M.J. Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Split to Splinters” by Max Everhart is a karmic explosion. This mystery begins with the theft of a career defining baseball from Jim Honeycutt, American athletic icon, superstar in baseball. He is the man with everything who is rich, controls his spoiled daughters, is strong, handsome, and has a beautiful narcissistic wife. His wealth and the circumstances surrounding it has created a dysfunctional family that looks great on the surface but hides a festering sore of competition and dislike between family members and an alcoholic writer who doesn’t write and lives in the basement of his mansion. Honeycutt, the American hero, suffers from hubris and an explosive temper. In a delayed attempt to improve the character of his daughters he changes his will and this leads to further kinks in family dynamics and the plot. The characters are attention-grabbing and well developed. P.I. Eli Sharpe is quick with the smart-ass comments so there is plenty of entertaining dialogue as well as a hilarious, useless fight between him and one of the characters that has the feel of a hallucination, something I noticed in another Everhart book. The motives and actions of the characters make the reader think about such things in other contexts as well. It is easy to see why “Split to Splinters” was a finalist for the Shamus Award in the Best P.I. Original Paperback category.