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The Big Nothing
Two-time loser Marty Pell had a one night stand with Lady Luck and four years later he's fresh out of prison, out of options and out of fucks to give. Pell is no longer incarcerated, but he's hardly free. The bastard child of that dubious encounter, the buried chunk of Uncle Sam's gold bullion, is just laying out there, begging to be claimed. With the help of fellow blue-collar opportunist and partner in crime, Shad Dupree, he sets out to find the fortune they stole—stole fair and square. Too bad they're not the only ones looking.
The waltz to this buried treasure crosses and double-crosses paths with bucketfuls of honorless thieves and murderous mercs. Once the winnowing begins, it leaves a trail of bodies straight to the end of the rainbow.
If Pell and Dupree can slip the Gordian knot of bloodletting and survive the mother-in-law of all cluster-fucks they might live long enough to be rich, very rich.
—Pop Noir caught up with Southern Gothic in a ramshackle joint just beyond the outskirts of Civility, Florida. The resulting issue of that dubious encounter is Bob Truluck. There’s luck enough to go around—grab you some.
The waltz to this buried treasure crosses and double-crosses paths with bucketfuls of honorless thieves and murderous mercs. Once the winnowing begins, it leaves a trail of bodies straight to the end of the rainbow.
If Pell and Dupree can slip the Gordian knot of bloodletting and survive the mother-in-law of all cluster-fucks they might live long enough to be rich, very rich.
—Pop Noir caught up with Southern Gothic in a ramshackle joint just beyond the outskirts of Civility, Florida. The resulting issue of that dubious encounter is Bob Truluck. There’s luck enough to go around—grab you some.
299 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
30 people want to read
About the author
Bob Truluck
6 books5 followersBob Truluck, suspected pop-noirist, resides in Orlando where he lives life to the fullest with his wife and ardent supporter, Leslie. Truluck has been nominated for some good stuff and has actually garnered a couple of nice looking awards. His influences would include Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, Charles Willeford, Nathan Heard and James Crumley, but not necessarily in that order. Bob has no favorite color or lucky number and will eat most anything but rutabaga.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 3, 2017
”She pitied people who had no sex in their violence, no violence in the sex. Such a dreadful waste of both.”
When Marty Pell and Shad Dupree saw a chance to appropriate several crates of gold bars from a hush hush military shipment enroute to Ghana, they didn’t hesitate. They took it. They buried it. Marty went to jail for it. Now he is out, and the first thing he and Dupree do, of course, is go to get the gold.
It is gone.
That is impossible.
An empty hole is an empty hole.
There is something about gold that inspires bigger dreams. Wrapped bundles of cash or piles of jewels just do not have the same weight to them in a man’s mind like gold bars, especially to a man who spent years looking at a shrunken world through the slivers of space between iron bars.
It doesn’t take long for Pell and Dupree to discover that cousin Tony Wayne is living like the nouveau riche who have all the money they need, but no developed, refined taste to go with it. His house might be ostentatious and ugly, but it screams I STOLE YOUR GOLD.
Tony is living with a boy toy whose name happens to be Toy, who has a penchant for rough sex, violence, and bloodshed. The demented, little shit has a wire dangling loose in his brain and is tired of staring at wrinkled pricks. He wants to be more like Gretchen Getz.
Gretchen is an assassin, who is as mercenary with sex as she is with bullets. She is a beauty.
”Hair the color of moonlight framed a heart-shaped face wars could be fought over.
Below the face was a body to make men forget war.”
Every man wants to take her for a tumble, but Shad Dupree might have had the most astute assessment of the dangers of taking her to bed:
”Buck-ass naked, she still scared the hell out of Dupree.
Like if he was f**king her from behind, her head might swivel around and eat his head while he was poling her.
But, goddamn, somebody had seen about her education down under the sheets.
Goddamn.”
She is an associate of Haas Mueller from South Africa, who is partnered with Tony Wayne.
Pell and Dupree realize they are going to need some specialized help and turn to Eddie Margot. He is good at arranging an extraction of goods from one party to another party. He has a “daughter” named Edy who helps him with the internet research side of the business. She is an urchin whom he found on the streets, and he has no qualms about using her in any nefarious way he wants to get what he wants.
On top of all of this is Tommy Zellwood, the government agent who had intended to rip the gold off as part of his retirement, but was thrwarted by the untimely snatch by Pell and Dupree. Now that he is following Pell and Dupree around, he is finding it all amusing and annoying in equal measure. ”The pro, you know what he’s going to do next. The amateur doesn’t even know himself from one minute to the other.
Keep telling yourself retirement fund.”
This is stew that could only percolate in the swamps of Florida. This is one sordid deal with way too many cooks in the kitchen. The winnowing must begin.
This plot is gritty, sweaty, and double hardboiled. It reminded me of some of the better, early Elmore Leonard books. The infusion of humor, sex, and violence are all balanced nicely in any Truluck book. There are always little kinks in there that give you pause for a moment, like when Edy is relating the selling of her virginity over and over again, and how you have to make the right noises at the right times to really convince them they are getting what they paid for. The prose feels real; the vernacular is convincing, and the plot is as coiled and convoluted as a pissed off python snake. Rip the sleeves out of your shirt, rub a cold beer over your forehead, and jump right into this steamy Florida Noir.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
When Marty Pell and Shad Dupree saw a chance to appropriate several crates of gold bars from a hush hush military shipment enroute to Ghana, they didn’t hesitate. They took it. They buried it. Marty went to jail for it. Now he is out, and the first thing he and Dupree do, of course, is go to get the gold.
It is gone.
That is impossible.
An empty hole is an empty hole.
There is something about gold that inspires bigger dreams. Wrapped bundles of cash or piles of jewels just do not have the same weight to them in a man’s mind like gold bars, especially to a man who spent years looking at a shrunken world through the slivers of space between iron bars.
It doesn’t take long for Pell and Dupree to discover that cousin Tony Wayne is living like the nouveau riche who have all the money they need, but no developed, refined taste to go with it. His house might be ostentatious and ugly, but it screams I STOLE YOUR GOLD.
Tony is living with a boy toy whose name happens to be Toy, who has a penchant for rough sex, violence, and bloodshed. The demented, little shit has a wire dangling loose in his brain and is tired of staring at wrinkled pricks. He wants to be more like Gretchen Getz.
Gretchen is an assassin, who is as mercenary with sex as she is with bullets. She is a beauty.
”Hair the color of moonlight framed a heart-shaped face wars could be fought over.
Below the face was a body to make men forget war.”
Every man wants to take her for a tumble, but Shad Dupree might have had the most astute assessment of the dangers of taking her to bed:
”Buck-ass naked, she still scared the hell out of Dupree.
Like if he was f**king her from behind, her head might swivel around and eat his head while he was poling her.
But, goddamn, somebody had seen about her education down under the sheets.
Goddamn.”
She is an associate of Haas Mueller from South Africa, who is partnered with Tony Wayne.
Pell and Dupree realize they are going to need some specialized help and turn to Eddie Margot. He is good at arranging an extraction of goods from one party to another party. He has a “daughter” named Edy who helps him with the internet research side of the business. She is an urchin whom he found on the streets, and he has no qualms about using her in any nefarious way he wants to get what he wants.
On top of all of this is Tommy Zellwood, the government agent who had intended to rip the gold off as part of his retirement, but was thrwarted by the untimely snatch by Pell and Dupree. Now that he is following Pell and Dupree around, he is finding it all amusing and annoying in equal measure. ”The pro, you know what he’s going to do next. The amateur doesn’t even know himself from one minute to the other.
Keep telling yourself retirement fund.”
This is stew that could only percolate in the swamps of Florida. This is one sordid deal with way too many cooks in the kitchen. The winnowing must begin.
This plot is gritty, sweaty, and double hardboiled. It reminded me of some of the better, early Elmore Leonard books. The infusion of humor, sex, and violence are all balanced nicely in any Truluck book. There are always little kinks in there that give you pause for a moment, like when Edy is relating the selling of her virginity over and over again, and how you have to make the right noises at the right times to really convince them they are getting what they paid for. The prose feels real; the vernacular is convincing, and the plot is as coiled and convoluted as a pissed off python snake. Rip the sleeves out of your shirt, rub a cold beer over your forehead, and jump right into this steamy Florida Noir.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
October 24, 2017
I enjoyed reading Bob Truluck’s latest book “The Big Nothing”. The book is noirish, funny, sexy and violent in all the right places. The main characters are a couple of old army buddies named Marty Pell and Shad Dupree. One is a finely dressed black man who has a way with the ladies, the other a Caucasian, one step up from being a two or three time looser There is a femme fatal named Gretchen who enjoys being naked.
The premise of the novel could best be described as a mash up of one of Donald Westlake’s caper novels and Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard books. The action revolves around Pell and Dupree having stolen a ton or so of gold when they were in the army and burying it on the military base.
Now three or four years later, after Pell is released from prison, they go to dig up the treasure which should set them up for life. But, someone found it first and absconded with their loot. Tracking down the treasure gets the plot rolling.
Truluck populates the novel with enough eccentric and idiosyncratic characters to move the story along in high gear and slathers enough dark humor to make the premise a whole lot of fun. Mr. Truluck introduces the book and reads from the work here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23dt...
The premise of the novel could best be described as a mash up of one of Donald Westlake’s caper novels and Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard books. The action revolves around Pell and Dupree having stolen a ton or so of gold when they were in the army and burying it on the military base.
Now three or four years later, after Pell is released from prison, they go to dig up the treasure which should set them up for life. But, someone found it first and absconded with their loot. Tracking down the treasure gets the plot rolling.
Truluck populates the novel with enough eccentric and idiosyncratic characters to move the story along in high gear and slathers enough dark humor to make the premise a whole lot of fun. Mr. Truluck introduces the book and reads from the work here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23dt...
November 3, 2017
Southern Noir set in Florida. The plot gets a little tangled, but that gets mostly sorted out as our cast keeps on killing each other. Had some very memorable characters. The ending sets us up for another book in the future.
February 7, 2017
I've enjoyed this book considerably less than Truluck's previous release FLAT WHITE. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's not stupid, bigoted or anything like that. It's a honest novel that knows what it's trying to be: soft of a throwback to Elmore Leonard's noirs. And it's doing a great job at it. It's just that I'm kind of lukewarm about Elmore Leonard in general. I thought THE BIG NOTHING lacked the idiosyncatic looniness of FLAT WHITE and became a little too unhinged at some point.
That said, THE BIG NOTHING is one of these novels where the principal character is stashed money and it does a great job at building around that premise. Hypothetical prosperity exposes characters, test loyalties and beats greedy assholes out of the bushes. I've enjoyed that aspect of Truluck's novel very much as it transcended the rather narrow paradigm of Southern noir. I mean, you could end up loving this book. It was more of a not-quite-my-thing than a bad book, really.
That said, THE BIG NOTHING is one of these novels where the principal character is stashed money and it does a great job at building around that premise. Hypothetical prosperity exposes characters, test loyalties and beats greedy assholes out of the bushes. I've enjoyed that aspect of Truluck's novel very much as it transcended the rather narrow paradigm of Southern noir. I mean, you could end up loving this book. It was more of a not-quite-my-thing than a bad book, really.
July 21, 2017
Flat White had me start to finish...this is more convoluted. Would have given a 3 but Trulucks writing is a joy in itself and makes up for the meandering plot. His books are impossible to get in Australia and cost an arm and a leg to get shipped from the States. I read any good Noir that I can find ... bloody annoying that one of my all time favorites costs $60 each ! Whinge over.
December 6, 2016
A couple of likable losers, Pell and Dupree, go after their hidden jackpot, but vultures start sniffing around and making the job much harder than it should be.
This is a standalone novel from the mercurial mind of Bob Truluck. If you want shorthand, this is in the ballpark of Willeford, Leonard and Lansdale. Equal but different. Truluck’s characters are uniquely his own, and their interactions pure gold — offbeat and consistently engaging, but at the same time deeply human and recognizably real. The dialogue and characters are what make the book stand out, the plot is what makes it sing, but the friendship of Pell and Dupree is the hook and the heart that gets to the reader.
THE BIG NOTHING is more moody than his Duncan Sloan books, but it’s got a groove that sticks to you long after you’ve finished the last page. The pace is slower and the prose is a bit more purple, but when the sh*t hits the fan you know who’s running the show. Highly recommended.
This is a standalone novel from the mercurial mind of Bob Truluck. If you want shorthand, this is in the ballpark of Willeford, Leonard and Lansdale. Equal but different. Truluck’s characters are uniquely his own, and their interactions pure gold — offbeat and consistently engaging, but at the same time deeply human and recognizably real. The dialogue and characters are what make the book stand out, the plot is what makes it sing, but the friendship of Pell and Dupree is the hook and the heart that gets to the reader.
THE BIG NOTHING is more moody than his Duncan Sloan books, but it’s got a groove that sticks to you long after you’ve finished the last page. The pace is slower and the prose is a bit more purple, but when the sh*t hits the fan you know who’s running the show. Highly recommended.
Want to read
September 28, 2019Synopsis: two-time loser Marty Pell went to jail for stealing from Uncle Sam; he's now out and wants to retrieve the buried treasure.
July 6, 2017
A somewhat complicated story, made more so, or maybe just because of, Truluck's writing style and street dialogue, Yet I really like Truluck's stuff so far and I couldn't put it down. At the same time, I couldn't wait to be done with it so I could move on to my next read.
February 9, 2017
Hardboiled noir fans: Bob Truluck delivers a lot more than promised in The Big Nothing. That’s no backhanded compliment.
The promise includes a vicious series of showdowns, a coterie of sadists and pervs, and a few well-intentioned rubes caught up in a game bigger than the pile they’re after.
The cast of criminals and dirty cops range from two common thieves of dubious mutual allegiance to a pair of sophisticated professionals with international pedigree and wild libidos. There’s the shifty lawyer and his boy-toy lover who play-act sex games of Russian Kapow, and a mothballed old crook bringing up the rear with his neophyte hacker.
Middle of them all is the sad-sack FBI gumshoe and his mysterious handler, who may or may not be running the game: ‘Milky wasn’t even sure what the guy was, if he was armed services, Special Forces, DEA, Secret Service or a fucking spook. Milky’d been led to believe the latter, but found out if you called the CIA joint in Virginia they’d say they didn’t know anyone by that name.’
A slow-cooked start gets the players onstage, and one or two detours with some heavy detail pad an otherwise tight and intricate yarn. Truluck’s tough-guy patois runs mostly authentic, James Ellroy shooting the shit with Elmore Leonard. “Eddie was the tethered dog at a gator hunt.”
Full review at Ben East Books dot com.
The promise includes a vicious series of showdowns, a coterie of sadists and pervs, and a few well-intentioned rubes caught up in a game bigger than the pile they’re after.
The cast of criminals and dirty cops range from two common thieves of dubious mutual allegiance to a pair of sophisticated professionals with international pedigree and wild libidos. There’s the shifty lawyer and his boy-toy lover who play-act sex games of Russian Kapow, and a mothballed old crook bringing up the rear with his neophyte hacker.
Middle of them all is the sad-sack FBI gumshoe and his mysterious handler, who may or may not be running the game: ‘Milky wasn’t even sure what the guy was, if he was armed services, Special Forces, DEA, Secret Service or a fucking spook. Milky’d been led to believe the latter, but found out if you called the CIA joint in Virginia they’d say they didn’t know anyone by that name.’
A slow-cooked start gets the players onstage, and one or two detours with some heavy detail pad an otherwise tight and intricate yarn. Truluck’s tough-guy patois runs mostly authentic, James Ellroy shooting the shit with Elmore Leonard. “Eddie was the tethered dog at a gator hunt.”
Full review at Ben East Books dot com.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews