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Hammer Time
Hammer Time is an hilarious noir detective/farce; imagine the love child of Mickey Spillane and Stephen Leacock. Private eye Jack Hammer is our height-challenged hero. His beloved small town of Canmore is being torn apart. We follow Hammer as he gathers the forces of good to track down what is behind it all. The cast includes Hammer’s partner – a ranch girl doll named Moira Pepperleigh. The Thomson twins – Bitsy and Stiffy. Side kick Axe, town drunk Timmy, newspaper editor Shelly Hussel, the savants at Jefferson’s barber shop, and the old folks who make up the crime fighting crew that come to be known as The Dependables, round out Hammer’s forces.
Who is behind it all? Is it the goddamned bunnies? Is it the usual perpetrators of evil in Canmore, the property developers? Or is it someone or something inconceivably evil?
1. Order Hammer Time here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019MDPEAQ?r...
Prologue
Got your message. Can you come to the trailer? I’ve got something for you.
That could mean something I’d earlier caught a glimpse of, or it could mean Stiffy or Bitsy or whatever she wanted to call herself, had an instruction manual on how it worked. Either way, the blood in my brain was moving south. I found my cabbie Dave at his usual table at the Ho and promised him a brace of fivers from my roll were he to get me to the trailer park on time.
I pushed open the door to 65a. Belle was sleeping on the kitchen floor. I nudged her with my foot. She opened an eye, licked my toe, and resumed snoring where she’d left off. Above and beyond, Stiffy posed in the bedroom doorway. She’d taken off the wig. What had been long and red was now short and black. Eyes once green were now dark brown. The rest was the same. I could tell because she had nothing on but the drink in her hand.
“Stiffy?”
“Call me Bitsy, Hammer,” she said, and opened her arms.
The no my brain was insisting upon was drowned out by something else screaming yes. I walked towards her. She knelt and pulled my head between her breasts. Then she stood and led me to her bed. Sooner rather than later, I’d had my fill of her. Later, after I’d returned the compliment, and after we’d burnt or way through a couple of Luckies, I reached for my clothes. Bitsy had another idea. As I approached the mound and wound up my tired arm for the throw to home that would complete the triple play, Bitsy moved to the window opposite the bed, the window that backed on to the forest, the window she had insisted we leave open, an idea I hadn’t agreed with, but which I was in no position to argue over. She stood beside it now, presenting her picture perfect profile. I stood on the bed. We kissed, bare chests pressing, the soft skin of her tummy rubbing against me. Before the ball arrived at the catcher’s mitt, Belle leapt onto the bed, crashed into me, and knocked me to the floor. A split second later, there was the sound of glass shattering and then the sound of Belle as she broke through the front door, her matted fur a bullet sheen as she sped away.
“Bitsy?” She fell to the ground before me, eyes open, a tear dropping to the carpet mixing with the blood gathering there, the blood from a bullet wound just above her left breast. I grabbed my cell and dialed 911 while cradling her head in my lap.
“Just hold me,” she whispered before her eyes closed. Sirens announced the ambulance’s arrival. The paramedics took Bitsy away, and then it was just me sitting bewildered amongst the blood and broken glass.
How had I ended up in a trailer park cradling a dark-haired girl in my arms?
It began with barking dogs and bunnies, that’s how. The goddamned bunnies.
Chapter 1
It was the kind of early autumn day where the virgin-white snow covering the street’s sins was turning to grey-brown sludge under the morning’s hot sun. I wasn’t sorry to see the mess disappear. I’m already the keeper of more secrets than I want; some of them are shabby, others sordid, and almost every one I could do without.
While sloshing through the mess I tapped a Lucky from the deck, took a few draws, flicked the butt towards the gutter, and watched it turn in a graceful arc before fizzing out in the slush. Main Street is lined with the usual small tourist town establishments – souvenir stores, chocolate and candy shops, stores selling outdoor and mountain gear, bicycle shops, a dollar store, wine and beer shops, and a druggist. Jefferson’s Barbershop holds a place of honor at the halfway point. There are a dozen restaurants and bars, anchored on one end by the Ho and at the other by the Grizz. The balance is taken up by coffee shops – their numbers legion.
I looked to the south. Eeyore, the East End of Rundle, stands to the right; legend has it Atlantis lies buried beneath its magnificent summit. My eyes skipped east from it and across White Man’s Gap to Ha Ling, named after a Chinese immigrant cook at the Oskaloosa Hotel in the late 1800’s. Ha Ling is trailed by Mount ...
Who is behind it all? Is it the goddamned bunnies? Is it the usual perpetrators of evil in Canmore, the property developers? Or is it someone or something inconceivably evil?
1. Order Hammer Time here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019MDPEAQ?r...
Prologue
Got your message. Can you come to the trailer? I’ve got something for you.
That could mean something I’d earlier caught a glimpse of, or it could mean Stiffy or Bitsy or whatever she wanted to call herself, had an instruction manual on how it worked. Either way, the blood in my brain was moving south. I found my cabbie Dave at his usual table at the Ho and promised him a brace of fivers from my roll were he to get me to the trailer park on time.
I pushed open the door to 65a. Belle was sleeping on the kitchen floor. I nudged her with my foot. She opened an eye, licked my toe, and resumed snoring where she’d left off. Above and beyond, Stiffy posed in the bedroom doorway. She’d taken off the wig. What had been long and red was now short and black. Eyes once green were now dark brown. The rest was the same. I could tell because she had nothing on but the drink in her hand.
“Stiffy?”
“Call me Bitsy, Hammer,” she said, and opened her arms.
The no my brain was insisting upon was drowned out by something else screaming yes. I walked towards her. She knelt and pulled my head between her breasts. Then she stood and led me to her bed. Sooner rather than later, I’d had my fill of her. Later, after I’d returned the compliment, and after we’d burnt or way through a couple of Luckies, I reached for my clothes. Bitsy had another idea. As I approached the mound and wound up my tired arm for the throw to home that would complete the triple play, Bitsy moved to the window opposite the bed, the window that backed on to the forest, the window she had insisted we leave open, an idea I hadn’t agreed with, but which I was in no position to argue over. She stood beside it now, presenting her picture perfect profile. I stood on the bed. We kissed, bare chests pressing, the soft skin of her tummy rubbing against me. Before the ball arrived at the catcher’s mitt, Belle leapt onto the bed, crashed into me, and knocked me to the floor. A split second later, there was the sound of glass shattering and then the sound of Belle as she broke through the front door, her matted fur a bullet sheen as she sped away.
“Bitsy?” She fell to the ground before me, eyes open, a tear dropping to the carpet mixing with the blood gathering there, the blood from a bullet wound just above her left breast. I grabbed my cell and dialed 911 while cradling her head in my lap.
“Just hold me,” she whispered before her eyes closed. Sirens announced the ambulance’s arrival. The paramedics took Bitsy away, and then it was just me sitting bewildered amongst the blood and broken glass.
How had I ended up in a trailer park cradling a dark-haired girl in my arms?
It began with barking dogs and bunnies, that’s how. The goddamned bunnies.
Chapter 1
It was the kind of early autumn day where the virgin-white snow covering the street’s sins was turning to grey-brown sludge under the morning’s hot sun. I wasn’t sorry to see the mess disappear. I’m already the keeper of more secrets than I want; some of them are shabby, others sordid, and almost every one I could do without.
While sloshing through the mess I tapped a Lucky from the deck, took a few draws, flicked the butt towards the gutter, and watched it turn in a graceful arc before fizzing out in the slush. Main Street is lined with the usual small tourist town establishments – souvenir stores, chocolate and candy shops, stores selling outdoor and mountain gear, bicycle shops, a dollar store, wine and beer shops, and a druggist. Jefferson’s Barbershop holds a place of honor at the halfway point. There are a dozen restaurants and bars, anchored on one end by the Ho and at the other by the Grizz. The balance is taken up by coffee shops – their numbers legion.
I looked to the south. Eeyore, the East End of Rundle, stands to the right; legend has it Atlantis lies buried beneath its magnificent summit. My eyes skipped east from it and across White Man’s Gap to Ha Ling, named after a Chinese immigrant cook at the Oskaloosa Hotel in the late 1800’s. Ha Ling is trailed by Mount ...
217 pages, ebook
Published December 21, 2015
2 people want to read
About the author
Peter Learn
7 books5 followers800 years ago in East Prussia, a tiny group of people had a revelation. Adult baptism was the one truth path! They split from their Mennonite brothers/sisters and formed a breakaway group known as the Dunkards. After having been escorted from East Prussia, Switzerland, and New York, our happy little clan ended up in Waterloo, the black walnuts having shown us the way. Even for us, the breeding pool was getting somewhat small and we decided once more to allow breeding with the formerly heathen Mennonites, enabling us to expand our choices to our 2nd and, in some cases, our 3rd cousins.
I married a Scottish/Cherokee woman. My children are thankful.
I married a Scottish/Cherokee woman. My children are thankful.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 28, 2015
Something like PG Wodehouse sauteed with pulp fiction — a sprinkle of the Marx Brothers from time to time — and some very useful environmental insights.
The Canadian ski town of Canmore is careening down a rocky slope, and locals are hoping that their travel-sized investigator Jack Hammer will pull his head out of his ass long enough to end the threat. Fortunately, what Hammer lacks in height, intelligence, and money-management skills is more than balanced in tough-guy attitude — and he has friends.
Anyone who's enjoyed Kinky Freedman's forays into this type of fiction should have a good time with this one, since it’s consistently much funnier than Freedman. An entertaining book to travel with if you like investigations that are not taking themselves too seriously.
[Please note that a copy of this book was received, free of charge, in exchange for a fair and honest review — Nate Briggs, for the Kindle Book Review].
The Canadian ski town of Canmore is careening down a rocky slope, and locals are hoping that their travel-sized investigator Jack Hammer will pull his head out of his ass long enough to end the threat. Fortunately, what Hammer lacks in height, intelligence, and money-management skills is more than balanced in tough-guy attitude — and he has friends.
Anyone who's enjoyed Kinky Freedman's forays into this type of fiction should have a good time with this one, since it’s consistently much funnier than Freedman. An entertaining book to travel with if you like investigations that are not taking themselves too seriously.
[Please note that a copy of this book was received, free of charge, in exchange for a fair and honest review — Nate Briggs, for the Kindle Book Review].
January 14, 2016
A hilarious sendup of Canmore combined with a satire of adolescent male fantasies.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews