- Hardcover: 285 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 068481000X
- ISBN-13: 978-0684810003
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Lusting for fame, fortune, heavy drugs, and good times, ex-con James Dean shows up at the Minnesota State Fair with his doped-up skinhead buddies and a gun. Alex Speeter saw the trouble coming, but didn't do anything to ward it off. He was too distracted by the Bueno Burrito on the menu at the fair's taco stand where he works, and the quarter of a million dollars in cash he stashed away in Folgers cans in his hotel room. But when the two collide more than sparks fly in this humorous crime tale.
From Publishers Weekly
Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard fans who have yet to discover Hautman's wryly comic, warmly human characters and madcap plots are in for a treat. Septuagenarian Axel Speeter, former roving gambler, now star taco entrepreneur at the annual Minnesota State Fair, lives at the Motel 6 despite having squirreled away $260,000 in cold cash inside coffee cans. Bucking the doubts of two pals from his swashbuckling gambling days-auto mechanic and junkyard proprietor Sam O'Gara (returning from Hautman's Drawing Dead and Short Money) and pint-sized Tommy Fabian, the fair's mini-donut king-the sentimental but streetwise and ever-libidinous Axel sends for Carmen, the sexy daughter of his mistress and business manager. Carmen, a med-tech student in Omaha, may be wild and possessed of a larcenous heart, but Axel knows that she sells tacos like no one else. Following her to the fair this year, however, is her skinhead lover and drug-dealer, Valium-hooked ex-con James Dean, who plans to steal Axel's coffee cans and head for Baja. When he can't find Axel's cache, Dean's interest turns to the midget donut king and his stash of cash. Mayhem ensues, inevitably. This is about as offbeat as a comic crime novel can get, and entertaining enough to win Hautman a whole passel of new admirers.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mortally funny...,
By
This review is from: The Mortal Nuts: A Novel (Hardcover)
Axel Speeter seems weird by most people's standards, but he seems to have everything under control, and likes it just fine. He's lived in a room at a Motel 6 for as long as he can remember. He keeps all of his clothes and personal belongings in milk crates and Folger's coffee cans stacked along one wall. He mistrusts banks and his life savings of $266,000 can also be found in those coffee cans. He runs a taco concession at the Minnesota State Fair. And his surrogate family consists of one of his workers, and her college-age daughter.In Richard Hautman's Mortal Nuts, things seem just swell until Carmen (Speeter's surrogate daughter and sometimes druggie college student) mentions to her ex-convict, Aryan Nation boyfriend that Speeter keeps large sums of cash in his room. This sets off a chain of events that start at the beginning of the fair and lasting the weekend and a half that the fair runs. Hautman is a master at oddball characters, and there are more than enough of them in Mortal Nuts. It's also fun to see the workings of the Minnesota State Fair-from the food concessions and the freak shows, to the show animals and the rides. It truly is a world unknown to many readers, myself included. This is my second Peter Hautman, and he continues to grow on me with each book I read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Minnesota State Fair high jinks,
By Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Mortal Nuts: A Novel (Hardcover)
Senior citizens hold sway in this funny, funny novel. Seventy-three-year-old Axel Speeter runs a taco concession stand at the Minnesota State Fair. Tommy Fabian, who stands 62"in cowboy boots and stetson hat, has a license to print money at Tiny Tot Donuts. Axel's former poker-playing buddy and expert mechanic Sam O'Gara also makes an appearance (He's Joe Crow's dad. Joe is Pete Hautman's reluctant detective in most of his books).The set-up is this: Axel doesn't trust banks; he's got $260,000 stashed in coffee cans at the Motel 6 where he lives. Sam has hired his girlfriend Sophie Roman's daughter Carmen to work at his confession stand. She detests the place; she's also dating a skinhead named James Dean, who wants to relieve Axel of his money, but not before he tries to mug Tommy Fabian. If you've ever watched midget wrestling you have a pretty good idea of what a one-sided proposition that was. Tommy refers to James Dean as that "bald monkey". The Minnesota State Fair is definitely the star vehicle here. Hautman has O'Gara pinch hit for Tommy at one point doing which time he says, "Gotta get myself a joint like this, sell deep-fried lutefisk on a stick or some goddamn thing." Sam also owns a pair of vicious dogs named Chester and Festus who're almost as funny as Sam. Some critics compare Pete Hautman to Carl Hiaasen. I'll admit I've only read one of Hiaasen's books and I may be prejudiced because of all the Minnesota references, but I'd say Hautman is Charlie Chaplin to Hiaasen's Pinky Lee. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favorite books,
By Bruce Neilson "bbb94" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Mortal Nuts (Hardcover)
This is the first book I read by this author, and it is great!I have since read most of his other works and they are also very good. Rag Man, Ring Game, Drawing Dead, Short Money, Doohickey are all worth reading, but The Mortal Nuts, for me, is the best. He has written some books more for children that I have not been interested in. This is just a great read! 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
run out of Hiaasens?,
By Sean C. Scott "bibliomane" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mortal Nuts (Mass Market Paperback)
In the carnival midway of literature, you'll find Pete Hautman somewhere between Raymond Chandler and Raymond Queneau, wandering from attraction to attraction in a half-serious scavenger hunt for zany characters and offbeat plot twists.Set at the Minnesota State Fair, The Mortal Nuts features a calculatedly improbable dramatis personae: Axel Speeter, a surly septuagenarian with a cash fortune stuffed into coffee cans; his buddy, donut mogul Tommy Fabian; Sophie Roman, Axel's stand manager and sometime bedfellow; Carmen, her Valium-popping daughter; Carmen's skinhead beau, an ex-con by name of James Dean; and a motley montage of characters that only a fair could bring together. Treating these characters like human balloon-animals, Hautman twists them into a believably unbelievable caper plot that's fluffily engaging - and shamelessly unprofound - from beginning to end. The Mortal Nuts is like a day at the fair, eating junk food and people-watching: it's by turns lighthearted and sordid, violent and naive, cheesy and sincere, frivolous and satisfying. No meaning-of-life headaches here - just a colorful, entertaining diversion. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
