Murder in Greasepaint: A Rock Cobbler Case

Rock Cobbler

by Whiskey Leavins

Washed up pitching prospect, Rock Cobbler, now a hotshot detective with the Santa Lacrimosa PD likes working alone as much as he likes bourbon. That is to say, a lot. One rainy night at Santa Lacrimosa Clown College he finds himself looking out a dorm room window. Down below lay the hilariously twisted body of Mr. Rubadubdub, apparently tossed from that very same window. The investigation into the defenestration of the promising young clown will lead Rock through dive bars, contemporary Christian clowning performances, and down into the seedy underbelly of clown lore. He will discover what no non-clown should know; like the existence of dangerous, rival clown factions that will stop at nothing in search of clown dominance and the possession of one particular venerated clown relic. To crack the case, he will have to match wits, and game, with the alluring Professor Wiggles. Will Rock take a pie to the face? Or will he solve the case before more clowns die?

Murder in Greasepaint is equal parts Chandler, Christopher Moore, Bozo, and Bourbon.

Genres: Mystery

242 pages, Paperback

Published March 30, 2022

About the author

Whiskey Leavins has lived a nomadic life. For him, the simple question, “Where are you from?” is way harder to answer than it should be. He has lived in multiple cities and states north and south of the Rio Bravo -- east and west of the Mississippi. But now he loves life in Santa Cruz, California after having taken up residence there seven or eight years ago. Despite possible objections from natives, he now considers himself a proud Santa Cruzian and wears Santa Cruz t-shirts damn near every day. He anticipates living in the Cruz, writing goofy stories, until he is no more. Like the devil Lucifestus, the star of his first collection of short stories, Whiskey Leavins enjoys a good dive bar, a good drink, and is an inveterate gambler.

Reviews

[Douglas Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's CLOWN NOIR! Need I say more?

Maybe not, but I will. Whiskey Leavins is on his way to becoming a legend; all you cool kids need to read him now so you can say you were one of the first. The Devil's Own Piss was a fabulous collection of darkly humorous and often surprisingly intelligent short stories that kept me smiling for weeks. When I heard that Whiskey had a novel coming out featuring a hardboiled detective investigating a murder at a clown college, I counted the days until I could get my hands on a copy. It was definitely worth the wait--and then some!

Prospective clown Mr. Rubadubdub has been defenestrated, and hard-drinking detective (and failed baseball star) Rock Cobbler must avoid the banana peels, seltzer spritzers, and pies in the face--not to mention a femme fatale with honkers that literally honk--in order to find out whodunnit. The stakes are high--clowning, it turns out, is serious business! And that's the key to what makes this story an instant classic: it all sounds like fun and games, but Whiskey tells the story with a (mostly) straight face that makes the slapsticks (real ones) and pratfalls indistinguishable from the deadly thrills and spills. The rubber chickens are filled with sand, and the knives are NOT made of rubber!

Oh, and we get a delightful cameo from a certain devilish character in TDOP, not to mention strong supporting roles from the Trope Brothers.

Rock Cobbler may have flamed out on the baseball diamond, but Whiskey Leavins hit this one out of the park. I want more Cobbler!

[Irene Hoey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the updated film noir atmosphere, and the beach town setting. The descriptions are masterful, the narrator is the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with in a bar. So much about clown culture that I had no idea about!

Really enjoyed the humor and clever irony tempered with warmth.

[Daniel Sonderling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quirky, well-constructed whodunnit with rapier wit and killer clowns; what's not to love? Hugely entertaining and clever, I loved the historical and cultural references (Ranganathan's Laws, represent!) My favorite part by far is the excellent Trope Brothers, a charming pair of gentleman criminals redolent of Croupe and Vandemar and other outstanding literary duos. I laughed out loud at the deadpan humor and one-liners, and I quite enjoyed the colorful cast of characters, including the dance-savvy police commander and the eccentric bartender-slash-Mentor to Rock's Telemachus. I'm also quite glad at how things worked out with Sarah! A well-rounded cast worthy of many, many future installments. And yes, I tried my first Manhattan in honor of Rock (it was so good I had two, and I'm a whiskey neat kind of guy). Read it!

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murder in Greasepaint is a hilarious adventure through the world of clowns and academia. Rock Cobbler is an unconventional but fantastic protagonist. The novel is populated with colorful characters that will all effortlessly keep your attention. It kept me laughing and I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next. It is one of my new favorite books!

[Mustafa Marwan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light and fun read. Smart Prose with memorable imageries, quirky dialogues and a quick read. Looks much simpler than it's actually is which is a big achievement.

[Ziggy Nixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What with the stabbing and the clown porn, I almost forgot why I came here.

OK, try to keep up with me here: what do you get when you mix some sort of Mickey Spillane / "Mike Hammer" tale with my 2nd favo(u)rite Sir Terry Pratchett book? Which of course all of you know is "Men At Arms" (I mean, duh!). Well, the answer to that is probably a very confusing mess that would make a Jackson Pollock work look like paint-by-numbers masterpiece. However, in some planes of existence, you might also get something that resembles Whiskey Leavins' "Murder in Greasepaint: A Rock Cobbler Case (Santa Lacrimosa Book 1)." I hope you wrote that all down, because I won't be repeating the full title again (I probably won't repeat the title at all, because why else would I post this review here?). But if you're curious, I am just that incredibly lazy, yes. Did I also mention that the author is named after my favorite drink?

I rested and tried to collect my wits. My wits thought this was a game and ran off to hide.

ANYWAY… why "Men At Arms" you're all shouting in unified curiousness, um, ness? Well, obviously you have shenanigans happening at the pre-eminent (dammit, why do I keep using words I don't know how to spell without google?) Clown College, including the mysterious death of at least one of said clowns in nasty, splattery, "are necks supposed to bend that way?", err, ways. You also have a bunch of strange rules that apply to the society of clowns and the whole clownage thing that cause all manners of confusion and hilarity along the way. Not to mention even at least one Gonne resp. gun involved although to be honest, in Whiskey's World (oh that would make an awesome name for an amusement park!), said weaponage does not play a huge role.

I had just enough brain cells left to find it fascinating.

UN-like the late but always great Sir Terry's work, however, there's definitely a kind of noir feeling to this particular book that is tastefully ignored at every opportunity. No, not ignored, but the feeling is akin to the reader being given a bit of a head noogie and maybe even a few Three Stooges slap arounds for good measure (spread out!). I mean, don't get me wrong: Rock Cobbler (no seriously, that's his name) is a pretty decent cop even if despite his pretty decent cop instincts he still makes what I'd consider to be some pretty boneheaded mistakes. Sigh, seriously kids: do not drink the drink prepared by the super sexy suspect while she is distracting you with her intensely nice nudeage. No, I don't know why I keep spelling things like that either. Let's chalk it up to stupidage and move on.

They want to make you think about the wonders of the world—poignancy and shit.

What I really liked though about Leavins' story beyond the alley of clowns (that's what the interweb says a group of them is called, along with 'shudder' and/or 'pratfall' of same) and the other interesting characters is that it was so multi-layered. Nothing will translate in this case as anything you or I or any other well-trained dancing Captains could have expected. I mean, I had the weird but oddly sexy librarian fingered from the beginning (that is NOT a sex pun though I once dated a rather weird but definitely sexy librarian). See how much I know? No, this is a tale with a lot of twists and turns and I'm not just talking about the defined steps for making balloon animals at birthday parties. Hey, we need to stay in character here.

As dick measuring contests go, I kept bringing a wiener to a bratwurst fight.

Call me crazy (I'll wait while you get it out of your systems), but I also like it when the main character winds up getting the absolute manure kicked out of him along the way to saving the day and being all heroic… and shit. Maybe you could blame that sadistic preference on someone like Douglas Lumsden - who I blame for putting me on the path towards reading any of Leavins' work in the first place (tricky bastard!) - who certainly beat the stuffing out of his own P.I. Guy at every available opportunity. It somehow makes it all seem that much more real that the guy is so committed to doing his job well, even if in accordance with books of this nature he has to break the rules and thumb his nose at "the man" along the way. Or he just may be an asshole, I'm not sure.

The room had been tossed, lightly, like a nice, basic side-salad.

So yeah, this was a lot of fun. A few too many grammatical error and punctuation hiccup thingies for my tastes, but probably no more than you'd find in any typical police report. And yeah, the humor was really, well, humorous. Dry as a nun's [redacted] but funny. I mean, how can you not have a good giggle when you've got names like Mr. Rumdumb Tootinkamin Thirsty Howley the Third (also known as Mr. Rubadubdub), Chucklenuts, aka Jeeso Christ the Clown, and Young Lady Honkers from East Bonkers floating around? OK, that one was a porn name bu(s)t still (noting she was also known as Professor Wiggles… and for good reason!) ! I mean, come on: boobs that honk when you squeeze them? Comedy gold served in solid silicone! Or vice versa, your call.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity, fuck fuck! I’m so fucked.

OK, I may have the sense of humor of someone several decades younger than my actual age but wouldn't that be amazing, especially "live"? I'd even do my best to remember my stats about baseball along the way because otherwise I'd be out on the first, um, swing. Hm, speaking of torpedo bats, I wonder… Anyway, great book, 4 1/2 full-fledged cream pies in the face from me and I can't wait to check out more of the series and Mr. Leavins' work!

[DuVay Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHISKEY LEAVINS has a skill dats essential to writing a damn good book: he makes ya laff ya ass off.

Well, not LITERALLY Yo ASS.

Butt U kno what I mean.

The MAN is funny/so U keep turning da pages.

Whole time he is telling a damn good story, too.

Dat B mah kinda hook dat make ya read da book.

I knew he had the Gift when I read his first joint: THE DEVIL'S OWN PISS, which was full of highlarious shawt stories including dat old Devil LUCIFESTUS and how life is a Devil of a time when ya live it the way he has lived it.

Now comes MURDER IN GREASEPAINT about Murder at a Clown College.

So rite off U kno its gonna B funny and EDUCATIONAL. Not Really. Butt really. Jes not in the way U usually git Edumoncated. This is dat knowledge U caint git in College, baby.

All the usual CLOWN JOKES are here. Of course, they had to be--otherwize it jes wouldna been rite, man!

Butt the story? Classic Hard-Boiled/Crime Noir, maybe less Noir butt still the MOOD is Criminal.
The NARRATIVE drives this plot.

And the NAMES. U got ya a PICKLES .... and RUBADUBDUB. And hoo missed dat shoutout to TUTANKHAMEN aka KING TUT via da name TOOTINKAMIN THIRSTY HOWLEY THE THIRD ala GILLIGANS ISLAND?? Even the Detective of the story: ROCK COBBLER had me thinking PEACH COBBLER or "a pie of some kind" da whole book.

So peep this: Mr RUBADUBDUB is found dead at the clown scene at the clown college, ight??

And Rock Cobbler, Head Clown Investigator in Charge goes to Investigate.

And this is where Brotha LEAVINS starts to show how he truly gits down. Funny/Smart Ass shit thru-out this book. Killer One-Liners and Puns, Inside Jokes n Pokes in the ribs, Asides. Its all here.

For example: I nodded and tried to smile back, but my normal-sized mouth could hardly keep up with hers.

Or this line: She looked at me Holistically. (Okay, these may not be funny to you. But I gurantee ya there are so many, ONE of his licks gone make ya split ya sides. So dont judge me. Read da damn book for yourself).

When the lines n punchlines aint flying off the page, there B kidnappings n stabbings, there is cross and doublecross, clown on clown violence (did u kno there are Clown GANGS)? Yerp. There Is.

In other words, jes what U expect to find happen at a Clown College OR maybe because OF the Clown College.

And by the way: Chuckle Nuts vs Doc Martin was a nice scene.

Plus The Rock got him sum booty (always worth the price of a book IMHO).

Meanwile, lemme go n read CLOWN CARS: THEORY AND PRACTICE REVISED 3RD EDITION to git mah Clowning game up.

YOU, on da other hand should go read MURDER IN GREASEPAINT by WHISKEY LEAVINS which clearly shows that CLOWNING aint No Joke.

Beause I have a Feeling Leavins will be Painting his name across the Humorous Crime Noir-Hardboiled Genre for years to come.

[Joe Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charm is the primary ingredient in this mixed drink of a mystery novel that has more in common with Dave Berry than Raymond Chandler. Charm because our protagonist, Rock Cobbler, is a laid-back sort of dude cop who narrates this first-person whodunit with a wry wit and friendly smirk. Charm because author Whiskey Leavins packs in all kinds of interesting and, ofttimes, humorous side characters who propel this plot of clown murder forward (the Trope Brothers...oh yes, they are a highlight!). And charm because the sunny, surf-city of Santa Lacrimosa is just the kind of place where evil can't hide for very long.

Not even if that evil is a clown.

A murder at a clown college sends detective Rock Cobbler down a rabbit hole of intrigue, including sexy clown professors (a sentence I never thought I'd type), warring clown secret societies, sexy non-clown librarians, and paid killers overly fond of dramatic and long-winded monologs. It's a packed case for our stalwart dude hero, but a lot of clever choices by Leavins kept me fully engaged.

Short chapters, comically named characters (better to remember them later), actual historical detail about clowns and the art of clowning that I never imagined, and plenty of danger by the end being some of those choices. These were the strengths that carried this fun novel along, head-and-shoulders above the crowd of so-called humorous cozy mysteries.

Even when the writing diverted into wordy (and unnecessary) descriptions of the fictional city, I found the casual, conversational tone to be entirely engrossing. In fact, that would be my only perceived flaw with any of the happenings in this book. A little too much talk in spots, although this is cleverly subverted in the final chapter, where we get our long-winded wrap-up and our action all mashed together.

Murder in Greasepaint has the feel of a genuine crime caper while also maintaining a real sense of humor as well, being funny without descending into parody levels of silly.

Murder in Greasepaint also reinforces two rules I always knew to be true:

Never trust a clown.

And never, ever sleep with a clown.

[Garth Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whiskey Leavins lurched out of the neon-hazy 3am fog of another breakneck bar crawl with 2021's 'Devil's Own Piss', a ribald collection of shorts showcasing the writer's down and dirty wit, wisdom and considerable yarn-spinning prowess.

Leavins, who bit the bullet and decided to self-publish during the onset of a certain pandemic, returns this month with Murder In Grease Paint, a raunchy clown-noir that's equal parts Carver and Coen Brothers.

Leavins' bar fly repartee sparkles, his plot cracks along with verve, and I have almost made it to the end of this review while completely resisting the urge to drop a clown pun.

One thing we rarely acknowledge, especially when it comes to indie publications, is production design. Hats off to Whiskey, whose works are gorgeously illustrated, typographically considered and rock considerable levels of polish.

That shit matters, man.

Pour a stiff one, drop the needle on some Mancini and crack a Leavins – you won't regret it.

Slainte!

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Smart and clever and funny.

[Jennie Reyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my very favorite authors! Great books, even better person!