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Exxxpresso
Australia's version of Elmore Leonard, Dave Warner with his tale of double-cross, triple-cross, triple-shot espresso in the Australian outback. Nice guy, accidental ex-con Rick is out of jail with a plan to change his life and maybe win back his estranged wife, Marietta. His plan is coffee. Waiting for a term deposit to mature, Rick borrows cash from drug dealer Guthrie to set up a jail-themed cafe, only to discover on the day of repayment that his ex, Marietta, has cleaned him out. Fortune seems to smile on Rick when he picks up a stranger's phone by mistake and gets a call asking if he is on his way "with the package.". Soon Rick is heading to the desert and the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. Rick's plan is not exactly watertight. He's going to pretend a packet of icing sugar is drugs and swap that for cash with the stranger. Unfortunately for Rick, the package referred to turns out to be Zeen, a dangerous, sexy woman - exactly the kind of woman Rick falls for. Guthrie has just shot a pizza delivery boy and he is on Rick's tail after his unpaid debt. So is the guy whose phone Rick grabbed. And so is Marietta's new guy, a Thai kick-boxing champion insanely jealous of Rick. In the richest square mile of dirt in the world, a state of the art espresso machine will determine the fate of a bunch of triple-crossing desperados. If you like your crime with a dash of Hiassen or Leonard humor you will enjoy this offering from the winner of the Ned Kelly, Australia's most prestigious crime fiction award.
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
15 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Dave Warner
44 books92 followersDave Warner is the author of fourteen crime novels, including the winner of the 1996 WA Premier’s Award for Fiction (City of Light) and the 2016 Ned Kelly winner of Best Australian Crime Fiction (Before it Breaks). He has also written a children's book series and seven non-fiction titles, and screenwritten for film and TV.
Dave Warner originally gained national recognition as a musician-songwriter in the late 1970s with Bob Dylan referring to Dave and Richard Clapton as his “favourite Australian artists”.
As early as 1973 Dave had formed Australia’s first punk band, Pus, playing early versions of tracks such as Suburban Boy and Hot Crotch which he was later to record with Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs. In 1975, Dave went to London and wrote many new songs which expressed a clearly-defined vision of Australia, including tracks such as Convict Streak and Oklahoma. Suburban Boy became the cornerstone of this new style of music, which Dave labelled suburban rock. Warner’s music is probably best described as Lou Reed meets Tomas Pynchon.
Dave's feature films include the cult-horror CUT (starring Kylie Minogue and Molly Ringwald) and GARAGE DAYS (co-written with director Alex Proyas). His many TV credits include scripts for MCLEOD’S DAUGHTERS and PACKED TO THE RAFTERS.
Dave was educated at Aquinas College and the University of Western Australia, graduating with a B.A. (Hons.), majoring in Psychology. Growing up an ardent supporter of the East Fremantle Football Club, his passion of Australian football remains.
Dave Warner originally gained national recognition as a musician-songwriter in the late 1970s with Bob Dylan referring to Dave and Richard Clapton as his “favourite Australian artists”.
As early as 1973 Dave had formed Australia’s first punk band, Pus, playing early versions of tracks such as Suburban Boy and Hot Crotch which he was later to record with Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs. In 1975, Dave went to London and wrote many new songs which expressed a clearly-defined vision of Australia, including tracks such as Convict Streak and Oklahoma. Suburban Boy became the cornerstone of this new style of music, which Dave labelled suburban rock. Warner’s music is probably best described as Lou Reed meets Tomas Pynchon.
Dave's feature films include the cult-horror CUT (starring Kylie Minogue and Molly Ringwald) and GARAGE DAYS (co-written with director Alex Proyas). His many TV credits include scripts for MCLEOD’S DAUGHTERS and PACKED TO THE RAFTERS.
Dave was educated at Aquinas College and the University of Western Australia, graduating with a B.A. (Hons.), majoring in Psychology. Growing up an ardent supporter of the East Fremantle Football Club, his passion of Australian football remains.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 7, 2018
When you think of Perth, Australia (if you ever did, that is) you would probably conjure up a pleasant city on the slightly small side tucked way over on the west coast of Australia on the edge of an enormous desert. I doubt you’d think of a corrupt city filled with drug-dealers, embezzlers and thieves and indeed, while it isn’t exactly filled, the city has enjoyed a rather sordid past. The wealth injected into the place from the state’s numerous rich mines inevitably breeds the low-life characters who feed off it. From this basis comes Exxxpresso, a humorous crime caper by Dave Warner that tracks the fortunes of a man trying to fulfil his dream of opening up a coffee shop.
Rick Boski has just been released from a West Australian prison with a great business plan that is a sure fire winner, a cafe with a prison theme. He just needs some money to get things started. As an ex-con he is unable to approach the usual lending institutions for the start-up cash, so instead he approaches Guthrie, a local drug-lord who shylocks on the side. Guthrie loans him $10,000 with the understanding that in one month’s time, on the 9th February, Rick would pay him $15,000. Sure, no worries, after all, Rick’s on a sure fire winner to get up and running. He'll have the 15 grand and then some, right? Yeah, right!
Marietta was Rick’s wife before his stint in gaol, but she wasn’t waiting around for him to finish serving his sentence. The divorce papers have already been lodged and she is now seeing Thaiphoon Tony, a kick-boxer with a chance of challenging for the World Kick-Boxing Title. She and Tony just have to come up with a $15,000 bond by the 9th of February to seal the deal. Hmmm, that date sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
To complete the chaos (and the plot set-up) enter Zeen and her partner Joe Harris who are preparing to exchange a package for a cool $25,000. Their plan goes horribly awry after their paths happen to cross Rick’s. Seizing an unexpected opportunity and in sudden need of money, did I mention that by now it’s February 9 and Rick is a little short and a lot in trouble, Rick finds himself driving out of Perth and far into the desert with the hope that he might be able to make the exchange in place of Zeen and Joe. Unbeknownst to him though, he’s leading a ragtag assortment of conmen, drug-dealers and kick-boxers out there behind him.
What follows is a highly amusing chain of events that takes Rick, Zeen, Thaiphoon Tony, Joe, Guthrie and a few other weird and wonderful supporting characters from Perth to Kalgoorlie and exotic locales in between in a classical caper. It is as improbable as it is entertaining with any number of double-crosses, narrow squeaks, lies, cons, scams and some incredibly bad luck as the money passes from person to person.
The characters are off-beat, somewhat reminiscent of the misfits encountered in an Elmore Leonard book with no attempt to develop them beyond the veneer with which they are introduced. To do so would have detracted from the plot driven style that Warner has employed to such good effect. They serve their purpose as part of a riotous escapade through the desert enhancing the humorous situations that Boski finds himself thrust into.
With multiple threads running through the story it's fascinating to watch them gradually get tied together, particularly the way seemingly unrelated subplots are brought crashing into each other. As a whole it makes for a page turning book that maintains an extremely fast paced – even in the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie.
Dave Warner writes in an easygoing conversational style that flows along nicely and engaged me completely in the romp as it unfolded. He has a flair for turning a seemingly innocent observation into laugh out loud funny commentary that is invariably right on the mark (although occasionally his humour would be best appreciated by Australian readers).
Exxxpresso is a fun chase through the Australian desert with plenty of farcical confrontations mixed in with a few down and dirty moments of outright violence. This is the kind of book that allows you to kick back and let yourself be entertained, rather reminiscent of Donald Westlake (King of the farce) or Carl Hiaasen (even down to the occasional environmental comment).
Rick Boski has just been released from a West Australian prison with a great business plan that is a sure fire winner, a cafe with a prison theme. He just needs some money to get things started. As an ex-con he is unable to approach the usual lending institutions for the start-up cash, so instead he approaches Guthrie, a local drug-lord who shylocks on the side. Guthrie loans him $10,000 with the understanding that in one month’s time, on the 9th February, Rick would pay him $15,000. Sure, no worries, after all, Rick’s on a sure fire winner to get up and running. He'll have the 15 grand and then some, right? Yeah, right!
Marietta was Rick’s wife before his stint in gaol, but she wasn’t waiting around for him to finish serving his sentence. The divorce papers have already been lodged and she is now seeing Thaiphoon Tony, a kick-boxer with a chance of challenging for the World Kick-Boxing Title. She and Tony just have to come up with a $15,000 bond by the 9th of February to seal the deal. Hmmm, that date sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
To complete the chaos (and the plot set-up) enter Zeen and her partner Joe Harris who are preparing to exchange a package for a cool $25,000. Their plan goes horribly awry after their paths happen to cross Rick’s. Seizing an unexpected opportunity and in sudden need of money, did I mention that by now it’s February 9 and Rick is a little short and a lot in trouble, Rick finds himself driving out of Perth and far into the desert with the hope that he might be able to make the exchange in place of Zeen and Joe. Unbeknownst to him though, he’s leading a ragtag assortment of conmen, drug-dealers and kick-boxers out there behind him.
What follows is a highly amusing chain of events that takes Rick, Zeen, Thaiphoon Tony, Joe, Guthrie and a few other weird and wonderful supporting characters from Perth to Kalgoorlie and exotic locales in between in a classical caper. It is as improbable as it is entertaining with any number of double-crosses, narrow squeaks, lies, cons, scams and some incredibly bad luck as the money passes from person to person.
The characters are off-beat, somewhat reminiscent of the misfits encountered in an Elmore Leonard book with no attempt to develop them beyond the veneer with which they are introduced. To do so would have detracted from the plot driven style that Warner has employed to such good effect. They serve their purpose as part of a riotous escapade through the desert enhancing the humorous situations that Boski finds himself thrust into.
With multiple threads running through the story it's fascinating to watch them gradually get tied together, particularly the way seemingly unrelated subplots are brought crashing into each other. As a whole it makes for a page turning book that maintains an extremely fast paced – even in the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie.
Dave Warner writes in an easygoing conversational style that flows along nicely and engaged me completely in the romp as it unfolded. He has a flair for turning a seemingly innocent observation into laugh out loud funny commentary that is invariably right on the mark (although occasionally his humour would be best appreciated by Australian readers).
Exxxpresso is a fun chase through the Australian desert with plenty of farcical confrontations mixed in with a few down and dirty moments of outright violence. This is the kind of book that allows you to kick back and let yourself be entertained, rather reminiscent of Donald Westlake (King of the farce) or Carl Hiaasen (even down to the occasional environmental comment).
January 21, 2026
My first Dave Warner book, and I really enjoyed it. It started a little slowly, and possibly predictable as the characters and story was set up, but then it exploded. Dave crafted competing character arcs to merge dramatically into a variety of "moment of truths" in Kalgoolie. It helped I could relate to the Aussie terminology, and had been to a bunch of places that feature in the story, however, even without that, the character driven plot was, to pardon a cliché, a roller coaster ( and a fun one at that)
I am now ordering the sequel to take on my next break in March, and it cannot come quick enough. Good fun!
I am now ordering the sequel to take on my next break in March, and it cannot come quick enough. Good fun!
February 22, 2021
A rollicking good yarn - double cross, betrayal, triple cross, treachery, gold smuggling, loan sharks and heavies as a young ex-con tries to realise his dream of opening a coffee shop. You'll love it!
February 1, 2023
eXXXpresso by Dave Warner
Mindbendingly fantastic. So many insane circles of circumstance, and hilarious incompetence. Very funny and very clever. Who’d a thunk it of just a suburban boy! Thanks Dave. Great stuff.
Mindbendingly fantastic. So many insane circles of circumstance, and hilarious incompetence. Very funny and very clever. Who’d a thunk it of just a suburban boy! Thanks Dave. Great stuff.
March 31, 2023
Lets not start by expecting too much here. It tickled me becasue it was set in Perth in the club, nighlife, streetlife scene of the end of the 90's. I was in that mix. Otherwise i would not have finished it. Light reading. pulp as they say.
April 19, 2020
I purchased this book for my Mum and she loved it. I am about to read it myself. An amazing Australian writer. You can't go wrong reading a book by this Author!!!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews