Review
“In Boca Mournings, the incomparable Eddie Perlmutter returns for another wild and wicked thrill ride across Boca Raton and beyond. Steven Forman had a lot of fun writing this book and his fans will have even more fun reading it. I love this guy—and this series."
--Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Impact
"Boca Mournings is a riotous, ribald look into the wacky world of South Florida.
Not since Carl Hiaasen at his peak has anyone captured the pothole-marred, driving impaired, and geriatric-dominated zaniness as well as the new master of the comic crime novel Steve Forman. Forman's wit is as sharp as his prose and Eddie Perlmutter is the best hero of his kind since Donald Westlake's famed Dortmunder. Side-splitting fun with a crackerjack plot added for good measure."
— Jon Land, bestsellling author of Strong Enough to Die
"Mystery fans who like their operatives macho with an offbeat sense of humor will certainly enjoy this book and look forward to the next in the series."
--Library Journal (on Boca Knights)
"Fast, funny, and incredibly wise, Boca Knights is a compulsive read that will make you want to live next door to its hero, Eddie Perlmutter, who is without a doubt one of the best new characters to appear on the literary horizon in years."
--Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Spymaster
Product Description
"Part Robert Parker, part Carl Hiaasen, Eddie Perlmutter is a high testosterone, no-nonsense detective with a tender core, and makes turning sixty a carnal, tropical ride." --Andrew Gross, bestselling author of The Blue Zone, on Boca Knights
Since he arrived in sunny Florida, Eddie has survived a run-in with the Russian mafia and tangled with Boca’s own family of neo-Nazis. But crime and punishment in the land of the Early Bird Special is complicated. The Russians have fled . . . but their evil lingers on; and though the neo-Nazis’ junior thug is guilty, punishing him is a lot more complicated than Eddie thought it would be when he caught the little creep harassing decent folks in the name of white supremacy. And that’s just Eddie’s unfinished business. Helped by a reformed computer conman, he’s busier with new cases than he was in Boston, ranging from a mysteriously haunted elevator to a double kidnapping. He’s got cases with trails as far as Russia and Israel. Retirement, my foot.
Good thing he didn’t retire from matters of the heart . . . because the women won’t let him. Between his amorous adventures and his burgeoning sleuth business, the twists and turns of Eddie’s life make this an edge-of-your-seat, uproariously funny thriller . . .
About the Author
STEVEN M. FORMAN is the author of Boca Knights, which was his first novel. He and his wife divide their time between Massachusetts and Boca Raton, Florida.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
BOCA RATON—NOVEMBER 2005 TIME AND AGAIN
BING!! A bullet slammed into my right shoulder. BANG! A second bullet slugged my left leg. BOOM! A baseball bat bludgeoned both my knees and I went down. I was an easy target kneeling motionless in the snow and another bullet punched my right shoulder knocking me over. I fell on my side.
I struggled for consciousness.
My stomach was on fire.
Get up before it’s too late.
I struggled to my feet and opened my eyes. There was no blood, no wounds, and no snow. I was standing next to my bed, naked, wet with the sweat of a bad dream. I had a painful erection. I had to pee. I walked to the bathroom and stood at the toilet waiting and remembering.
I had been shot in the shoulder the first time in 1970. My left leg was hit in ’76. The bat to my knees was 1982. These isolated incidents from my ancient history as a Boston cop had melded into a single nightmare . . . except for the second shot to the right shoulder that happened only last year in Boca Raton. Boca? What was I doing in Boca Raton?
I had been one of Boston’s most decorated policemen from 1966 to 2000, but now I was just a sixty- year- old retired cop living in Florida. I was five feet seven and weighed slightly over my fighting weight. I was in great shape for an antique and there was a beautiful woman in my bed. She was fifty-percent black Haitian, fifty-percent white European, and twenty percent more than fifty percent my age. Best of all, she was one- hundred-percent awesome.
When I retired to Boca last year I expected to live a peaceful life as a golf-course ranger in a gated community called Boca Heights. Things didn’t work out. I quit the ranger job after a few days because three women golfers refused their right to remain silent. Later that same afternoon I uncovered a Russian Mafia crime ring in Boca and survived a shoot-out with them. In less than a year I had solved a local mystery, stopped an assault on two women, and gone to war with an army of neo-Nazis. My exploits received a lot of attention from the press.
A local news reporter dubbed me the "Boca Knight" and when a CNN reporter asked me, on national television, to define a Boca Knight I said, "Anyone willing to fight for everyone’s right to live in peace," which was all that came to mind.
Suddenly everyone wanted to be a Boca Knight because everyone could be a Boca Knight. It was easy: live and let live. Boca Knights baseball caps and T-shirts began appearing in Palm Beach County. I was a mini celebrity.
I didn’t feel so famous standing by the toilet waiting to pee and when I finally did it was a weak effort. I trudged back to the bedroom and looked at the woman in my bed. She was one of the damsels in distress I had had rescued. Good save!
I eased back under the covers, trying not to wake her. She stirred in her sleep, parted her luscious lips, and groaned.
Again!
I squinted at the illuminated numbers on the bedside clock.
Again? I wondered aloud. It’s two thirty in the morning.
I don’t care.
We did it again.
4:15 A.M.
You’re kidding me, right? I said, opening my eyes.
No, I’m serious. We have to do it again.
I felt like I was in a Nike commercial.
5:30 A.M.
That’s it. I’ve had it, I said, sitting up in bed.
One more time.
Can’t you control yourself?
No.
We did it again then slept three straight hours.
8:30 A.M.
I woke up and watched the breathtaking woman next to me taking shallow breaths while she slept. I found it hard to believe that a woman so young and gorgeous was actually with me. I kissed her beautiful brown face.
Good morning, Claudette, Mr. Johnson, my penis said in a voice only I could hear. Mr. Johnson and I have been together for as long as I can remember, although we didn’t start communicating until I was about eleven. He just popped up one night in bed and introduced himself.
Hey, look at me. I can stand up.
In the beginning, our relationship was touch and go, but we eventually reached an understanding. He agreed to stop showing up at school and family gatherings, and I agreed to a more hands-on relationship when we were alone.
Mr. Johnson poked Claudette’s side. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, I heard him say.
Claudette couldn’t hear him, of course, but she understood him perfectly. She smiled without opening her eyes and reached for him.
I gotta hand it to you, Mr. Johnson said.
"And what do we have here?" she asked in a husky morning voice.
Your breakfast sausage, said my one-eyed friend.
"Didn’t you get enough last night?"
Redundant question.
"So what did you have in mind," she teased me with a grin.
How ’bout blowing revelry? Mr. Johnson suggested.
Sex with Claudette Permice was a wild, exuberant, pulverizing experience that usually ended with Mr. Johnson needing first aid. Claudette looked like Halle Berry. Once, while we were having sex, she punched my shoulder and told me to stop pretending she was Halle Berry.
"I’m not pretending you’re Halle Berry," I assured her.
"Then why do you keep screaming ‘Fuck me, Halle’?"
"Sorry."
Making love and having sex with Claudette Permice were two different things, and I loved that about her.
"Man, you’re good, Eddie," she said when our morning session was over. "You’re a sixty-year-old wonder."
Thank you, thank you, Mr. Johnson said. He bowed and just kept going down.
"Almost sixty-one," I reminded her, "and I’m not ashamed to tell you I’m exhausted."
"No wonder," Claudette said, swinging her long, gorgeous, coffee-colored legs out of bed. "You got up to pee three times last night."
"Nice ass, Halle," I said, watching her walk to the bathroom and wanting to change the subject.
"Never mind my ass," she said.
She turned to face me with her hands on her hips.
I tried changing the subject a second time. "Great tits, Halle."
"Don’t try to change the subject," she said. "You were talking in your sleep in bed and talking to yourself in the bathroom."
"I wasn’t talking to myself," I said defensively.
"Oh, really? Who were you talking to?"
How could I tell her I was talking to my penis? I had shared that secret with only my beloved late wife, Patty, who responded to my revelation by saying, "All you men are alike."
But that was more than twenty years ago. Claudette Permice was nothing like Patty McGee Perlmutter. But, I decided to take a risk and share my secret.
I tried to break it to her gently. "I was talking to my penis."
"All you men are alike," she said. "I suppose the little fella has a name."
"Mr. Johnson," I said. "And watch that word ‘little.’
" "And what were you and Mr. Johnson talking about?" she asked with a tired sigh. "All I heard was something about again and not again."
"He kept waking me up to pee," I answered honestly. "I was talking to him about timing."
"I’ll tell you about timing," Claudette said. "The two of you woke me up at two thirty, four fifteen, and five thirty."
"Thank you, Big Ben."
"And after all that talking you peed like a gerbil."
"Oh, so now you don’t like the way I pee?"
"You used to pee like a race horse," she explained. "Not a seahorse."
"Now you’ve gone too far," I said.
"When was your last physical?" she asked.
"President Carter’s administration."
"Be serious."
"I am being serious. He was our thirty-ninth president."
"I want you to have a prostate exam," she insisted.
"No. And that’s final."
"Today."
"Okay."
Excerpted from Boca Mournings by Steven M. Forman.
Copyright 2010 by Steven M. Forman.
Published in February 2010 by Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
