The Game of Thirty [Paperback]

The Game of Thirty is an ancient Egyptian board game in which the movement of pieces, according to the casting of bone dice, foreshadows events in the lives of the players. In Kotzwinkle's ( E.T. ; Doctor Rat ) noir novel for the 1990s, Manhattan is the ersatz playing board, and antiquities dealer Tommy Rennseler is a player whose piece was moved to the square of Rebirth ("your piece dies and has to start all over again") on the night he was injected with cobra venom and disemboweled. High-tech detective Jimmy McShane is hired by Rennseler's daughter Temple to find her father's murderer. Aided by his office mate, Ann Henderson, a chiropractor with a New Age outlook and a talent for Sherlockian deduction, McShane moves around the city/board trying to discover who his opponent is. More murders and a suspect's involvement in child prostitution seem to sidetrack the plot, but in the end, all pieces, players and moves prove necessary to Kotzwinkle's resolution. McShane, Henderson and the supporting cast are fully three-dimensional and memorably idiosyncratic. In this game of 30, the reader is the winner, no contest.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

In Kotzwinkle's ( The Midnight Examiner , LJ 4/1/89; The Hot Jazz Trio , LJ 10/15/89) latest novel, we meet New Yorker James McShane, private detective extraordinaire, a man of wit, confidence, and panache. Assisted by his beautiful office neighbor, a people-smart chiropractor, McShane investigates the murder by evisceration of a wealthy antiquities dealer specializing in Egyptian artifacts. He alternately charms, bluffs, or pushes his way around a short list of suspects, including the dealer's quirky family, a mysteriously ubiquitous sender of warnings, and an old-money pedophile. The author's literate, fluid prose, which sparkles with le mot juste , thus reveals an admirable hero, solid plot, and Egyptian cachet as well as the author's versatility. Sure to be popular. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/94.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

When a first-class mainstream writer turns his hand to genre fiction, the results are seldom mediocre. They're usually either spectacular or awful. Like Richard Brautigan's Dreaming of Babylon (1977), Kotzwinkle's venture into crime fiction is first rate, a delight to read and a successful attempt to expand the horizons of the genre. Making masterful use of the first-person narrative form common to most hard-boiled detective fiction, Kotzwinkle introduces Jimmy McShane, who is hired to solve the grisly murder of a shady dealer in rare antiquities. Pitted against a killer whose methods include cobra venom and disembowelment, McShane is joined by Dr. Ann Henderson, a chiropractor and aspiring sleuth. It turns out that the deceased was killed while playing the Game of Thirty, an ancient Egyptian board game, and that the killer is playing the game with Jimmy, using all of New York City as the board. Played by the pharaohs, the Game of Thirty is designed to parallel an individual's journey toward either life or death. Laced with a liberal measure of Kotzwinkle's signature wit, this multileveled story is imaginatively constructed and populated with an engaging menagerie of characters both fair and foul. Unique and compelling. Elliott Swanson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Meet Jimmy McShane, private eye: street-smart, female-ogling, smart-mouthed, sharp-dressing--well, you know the type. (Picture Bruce Willis in the movie version.) His sidekick is Jane Henderson, a quick-witted, Rollerblading--and yes, gorgeous--chiropractor with such this-must-be-the-'90s obsessions as herbal healing and aromatherapy. (Demi Moore, perhaps?) This is one of those books that make you wonder why they didn't just go straight to the screenplay. Lots of great New York scenery, from uptown to Chinatown to the bowels of 42nd Street, lots of colorful stock characters, lots of scenes that sound like they were written with a film crew in mind. The plot itself is enjoyably silly, for a time, involving the annoyingly leering yet brashly endearing McShane in a quest for the killer of a Madison Avenue antiquities dealer who specializes in ancient Egyptian artifacts. His client is the dealer's daughter, Temple (picture Julia Roberts in one of her trademark damsel-in- distress roles), who has legs that won't quit and a confused, little-girl-lost demeanor that keep our hero's heart thumping and pull him deeper and deeper into the mysteries behind the perfectly composed masks of his upper-crust suspects. The book's title refers to an Egyptian board game that is said to reflect the state of its players' lives and handily serves just this purpose in the novel, predicting each move the characters make in a gamelike plot. If that's not enough to clue you in on what will happen next, there's plenty of author-supplied foreshadowing. Unfortunately, the mood devolves from over-the-top good fun to something darker and decidedly unfun during the latter half of the book, and the denouement, despite all the hints, comes as a too preposterous and sentimental letdown. Kotzwinkle (The Exile, 1987, etc.) is best here when he sticks to wisecracking skepticism and avoids the TV-movie drama. (First serial to Esquire; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Streetwise PI Jimmy McShane has seen plenty, but he?s never seen anything like the murder of Tommy Rennseler. A wealthy antiques dealer with a passion for Egyptian artifacts, Rennseler was killed like an ancient Egyptian: injected with cobra venom and ritually disembowelled. When he?s hired by the dead man?s daughter, McShane realizes quickly that he?s never seen anything like Temple Rennseler either. She?s beautiful, exotic and?perhaps?extremely dangerous. She?s also obsessed with the Game of 30, a centuries-old form of chess that?perhaps?foretells the future. The more enmeshed he gets with Temple, the more McShane succumbs to the lure of the Game. But just what game is Temple playing?