Madball (Black Gat Books)

Product Description

MADBALLIt starts with a bank robbery. That’s where the $42,000 comes from. Then the two carnies who pull it off get in a car accident, and one of them is killed. The other guy, Mack Irby, waits it out in his hospital room until he’s recovered enough to head back to the carny to collect the cash, which is now all his. But he doesn’t figure on the Murderer. Someone else knows about the robbery—and quickly removes Irby from the scene with a fatal tent stake. But that someone is spotted leaving the crime of the crime by Dolly, one half of the knife-throwing act. Now she must be silenced.Then Doc Magus, the fortune teller, starts doing some figuring, and begins to realize that there’s more to Irby’s murder than meets the eye. That’s when Sammy, Jesse’s halfwit punk, starts hanging around the Murderer’s trailer, hoping to catch a glimpse of his pornography collection. Things are getting desperate. How’s the Murderer supposed to get away clean with all these loose ends, these prying eyes? He’ll just have to start taking care of them, one at a time…

Review

“Madball is a terrific pulp novel that is filled with energy and excitement from cover to cover…Brown fills this novel with all manner of thieves, murderers, strippers, carnival barkers, knife throwers, drifters, fortune tellers, and others… all linked together by stolen money, jealousy, fear, lust, and greed.”–Dave Wilde
“Perhaps his best mystery novel.”–Frank McSherry
“This novel is deliciously dark, suspenseful, slightly comedic and ribald… be sure not to miss this one–Mr. Brown will charm you and hold you in uneasy rapt attention.”–Michael Schramm

From the Inside Flap

MADBALL It starts with a bank robbery. That’s where the $42,000 comes from. Then the two carnies who pull it off get in a car accident, and one of them is killed. The other guy, Mack Irby, waits it out in his hospital room until he’s recovered enough to head back to the carny to collect the cash, which is now all his. But he doesn’t figure on the Murderer. Someone else knows about the robbery—and quickly removes Irby from the scene with a fatal tent stake. But that someone is spotted leaving the crime of the crime by Dolly, one half of the knife-throwing act. Now she must be silenced.Then Doc Magus, the fortune teller, starts doing some figuring, and begins to realize that there’s more to Irby’s murder than meets the eye. That’s when Sammy, Jesse’s halfwit punk, starts hanging around the Murderer’s trailer, hoping to catch a glimpse of his pornography collection. Things are getting desperate. How’s the Murderer supposed to get away clean with all these loose ends, these prying eyes? He’ll just have to start taking care of them, one at a time

About the Author

Fredric Brown was born on October 29, 1906 in Cincinnati, Ohio. According to his wife, Brown hated to write. So he did everything he could to avoid it—he’d play his flute, challenge a friend to chess, or tease his cat. But when he did write, he produced work in a wide variety of genres: mystery, science fiction, black comedy, sometimes all in the same work. His first science fiction story, “Not Yet the End,” was published in 1941, and one of his stories, “Arena,” was adapted as an episode of Star Trek. The Fabulous Clipjoint, Brown’s first mystery novel, won the Edgar Award for outstanding first mystery and began a series featuring Ed and Ambrose Hunter, carny-relatives turned detectives. Brown was a newspaperman by trade, married twice with two sons, who devoted all-to-little of his life to fulltime writing. He died on March 11, 1972 in Tucson at age 65 from emphysema.