Buzzkill

by James R. Preston

     “Am I going to die?”

      It’s 1968. Barry Mcguire’s “Eve of Destruction” is three years old and still getting airplay. 

      “Mrs. Robinson” knocks “Tighten Up” (Archie Dell and the Drells) out of Billboard’s Number 1 spot.  And somebody scrawls, “Stand close. It’s shorter than you think,” on the wall of a Cal State Long Beach Men’s Room. It’s a year that is both horrific, and happy.

     When she asks that question, Mary Jane Bailey is an eighteen-year-old college student lying on her back in a field adjacent to Cal State Long Beach. She’s bleeding from a cut on her forehead, and a man in a sharkskin suit is standing over her holding a straight razor. 

     Jane is a snitch. A federal agency has asked her to keep her eyes open and report potentially violent student activities. For reasons she herself doesn’t understand, she agrees. Buzzkill, the second of Preston’s novellas set in the turbulent sixties, is the story of Jane as she tries to infiltrate a radical group and establish whether or not they’re as dangerous as they seem. 

     Go with Jane as she tries to follow a car (harder than it looks), to a beach party, and to a massive anti-war demonstration. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll are back. Welcome to Buzzkill. 

     And the man in the suit with the razor says, “Yes.”

196 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2017

About the author

James R. Preston, two-time recipient of the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference Award for Fiction, spends most of his time at the keyboard writing in a style best described as “beach noir” and “Margaritaville but with guns.” His latest novels are the thrillers Crashpad and Buzzkill.

He is now working on Remains To Be Seen, the sixth Surf City Mystery. This series has been selected for inclusion in the California Detective Fiction collection of the Bancroft Library, one of the libraries at the University of California, Berkley.

Away from the keyboard, James likes reading, films (especially 1950s SF like Them and The Crawling Eye, sailing, bodyboarding and Texas Hold’Em Poker. James played in one of the 2011 World Series tournaments and sadly busted out early. Next time it will be different.

Reviews

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun mystery set on the Long Beach State campus in 1968. Mary Jane Bailey, an 18-year-old student, finds herself bleeding in a nearby field. A man stands over her holding a straight razor. She has been caught up in the campus unrest of the Vietnam era, trying to infiltrate a radical group to learn if they are really a threat to the U.S. government. She has become a snitch. At the same time, she is a normal young co-ed who goes to classes and beach parties. The second novella featuring Mary Jane, Buzzkill works as a prequel to the first, Crashpad. We learn how Mary Jane becomes the person of that book. Both are fast and exciting reads that do an excellent job of depicting the tumult of late-60s and early 70s America. Both are quite fun reads.