Speedo

by Jim DeFilippi

Chester Earl Costagravas needs to get hold of some wedding money before his Julietta leaves him for someone offering her a better reception. First, there’s the thousands of dollars on the table, just begging to be heisted, at Dr. Bohansen’s weekly poker game. Then there’s the stolen Yogomani lamp that Chester Earl’s buddy Ralphie says is worth a lot, created by the Chinese during the Tang dynasty before they got around to inventing fake orange juice. Julietta’s mother and foster brother, Foster, are no help—they’re under indictment for driving up to a museum in Albany and attacking a ceramic buffalo with baseball bats. Oh, and it’s 1999, and Ralphie says this new year, this Twenty-hundred, will bring calamity and confusion. So, when Chester Earl’s kid brother comes to him terrified with a story of watching a head-shot suicide that left no body, Chester Earl must think of a solution for everything. And he must do it quick.

274 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 2010

About the author

Jim DeFilippi is a crime novelist (DUCK ALLEY, BLOOD SUGAR, JESUS BURNED) and humor writer. His crime novels are all times humorous; his humor writing at times is criminal. Newsday called his stuff “Suspenseful, often hilarious,” Publishers Weekly added, “Excellently paced and imaginatively told,” but his favorite blurb is “Whoa, that was good.”

Reviews

[Jim DeFilippi · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re looking for a good e-book read:
This week’s “Pick of the Litter-ature” is Jim DeFilippi’s SPEEDO, which the author describes as his “petite-crime novel,” echoing the spiraling plots and spot-on comic dialogue of Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins.
Chester Earl “Speedo” Castagravas, a simple blue collar guy from Queens, New York, is forced to dip his toe into the world of crime simply to pay for the wedding to his beloved Julietta before she leaves him in frustration. Speedo and his buddy Ralphie decide to boost a high stakes poker game out on Long Island. What could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, including a brilliant and non-submissive victim, his shotgun-wielding mistress, and a seduction in a motel room followed by a suicide and a missing corpse.
Give SPEEDO a try.
Enjoy yourself,
Jim