Adventures of a TV Repairman
Growing up is hard, especially for an old dog used to running in circles and chasing tail.
April Fools' Day, 1961, leaves TV repairman Hunny stiffed on a service call, and he'll be damned if he doesn't get paid. His mission nearly kills him at the gun-toting hands of a crazy lady, not the only crazy lady to pull a gun on him.
While he envisions an unappealing future and has a slippery hold on a new-found love, he's tethered to his two polar-opposite sisters and isn't sure, at his core, which of them he's more like. His wandering "antenna" has had a chokehold on him for much of his life, but now he's ready for love's chokehold. However, he first has to free himself from the chokehold of the Albanian Mob.
Hunny's journey leads him to Judy Garland and Carnegie Hall, a hitman in drag, questionable deaths, FBI spooks, and his very own felony—courtesy of the Mob—all while juggling family demands, true love, homophobia, racism, and the curse of shadow puppet shows.
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Dameland
Seasoned dame Mona finally makes the grade but now must make a choice between a shot at fame and a shot at being a stand-up broad.
Dreams! Drive! Danger! BALLS! It's 1954. Mona Winston, now a ripe fifty-two, is hell-bent on finding fame on the stage. She's devoted ten years to chasing after Hollywood film roles and New York teevee jobs. After a gig as a carnival hootchy-kootchy dancer, she lands in Cosmotown, the Broadway of the Midwest. Filled with more drive and self-delusion than talent, the hard-scrabble Mona knows she'll make it—"Because I'm tough!"
Nevertheless, life is still a struggle. She survives prison time and a bout with amnesia. She tangles with dangerous men, including two exes, a lynch-happy farmer, and a merciless drama critic, but yearns for the only guy she trusts, a three-armed musician with an extra shoulder to cry on. Mona finally scores a choice role in a major Cosmotown play. On the brink of stardom when opening night arrives, she makes two startling discoveries and must choose between her shot at fame and a shot at being a stand-up broad.
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Medicinal Martini
A banged-up broad hires gumshoe Dusty to tail her twin sister on a transatlantic ocean voyage but then suicide—or was it murder?—foils his easy gig.
After cracking up in Europe, gumshoe Dusty Darling is sailing home to Manhattan. His R&R soon gets shelved when he accepts an urgent assignment from another passenger, a Park Avenue dame with a badly banged-up kisser. Next thing, he's drawn into a curious shipboard death, a shady disappearance, and a rash of jewel thefts—all while battling mal de mer. The doctor's Rx is, "Take two martinis and call me in the morning."
A shameless womanizer, Dusty has the hots for the ship's pretty social director. He's also flipped for a beautiful twin with a poignant past, love of string art, and nitwit fiancé. A screwball colonel, stagestruck teen, crafty gigolo, and two shipwrecked sailors add to the high seas hijinks.
Set in 1961, this cozy mystery finds the pickled Dusty in a pickle. Just how far overboard will he go for love?
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Karenette in the Big Apple
The dizzying heights of modern Manhattan is sending Karenette into freefall. Before reaching full Karenhood, will someone see to it she get what she so richly deserves?
In 1962, that quaint time of polio, carbon paper, and the Constitutional right to an attorney, Karenette leaves the farm for New York City to become a career girl—and to find a husband.
Along with being an oblivious racist, xenophobe, and self-anointed victim, she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and doesn't know the meaning of the word surrender, despite being an assistant editor in a prestigious publishing house. Her pursuit of handsome Ken Davenport is so relentless she's not deterred by her own secret phobia and the calamities to the city's tall buildings that season, including a tornado strike, towering inferno, defenestration, rooftop decapitation, and elevator mutilation. She learns about free love, beatniks, jazz, and psychoanalysis, attends the celebrated Leprosy Charity Ball, and pens her own space-age novel. The shocking secrets of a hard-boiled veteran editor, peculiar co-worker, and her beloved Ken are revealed, along with her own closet's skeletons.
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Lives of Midcentury Fashion Dolls
4 SHORT STORIES
DREAMYHOUSE DREAMS
What does volunteer dolleprosy nurse doll Babsy do when her visiting French cousin model doll Babette steals her boyfriend surfer doll Kent's heart?
DOLLAR HOTEL
What does hotel manager doll Sven do, amid the combustible dynamics of his staff and guests, when a millionaire baby doll threatens hotel jobs?
THUMBS DOWN
What does beautiful coed doll Brie do when her parents reject her pimple-faced doll boyfriend and thereby trigger a chain of events leading to blackmail, aliens, and a campaign penis?
DOLLERIA
What does DIA agent doll Langford do when he goes undercover as an Irishtown priest—tasked to find a Nisi collaborator and prevent a refinery explosion—but a local nun doll captures his heart?
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You Can't Outrun the Devil
Aging Ivy leaves the fast life for a quiet beachfront home only to find sin and danger at her door.
Ivy Borax, escaping her high-living past, moves to a quiet beach house to walk on the beach, paint, and maybe even write a novel. She marks this new beginning with a ceremonial Catholic confession.
But her new life comes with its own complications. People turn up uninvited at her new home, a young, handsome beachcomber claims her beach, and her shady old flame resurfaces. Amid all this, human leg bones appear at her door and the scourge of devil worship clouds her life like a Donora smog. Who is damning her new start in life and why?
Return to 1955, back when living in sin was more damning than being ugly as sin.
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I Married a Communist Columnist
Newlywed Sheila suspects her newsman hubby of being a dirty, filthy, no-good commie! So she takes action a flag would be proud of, because patriotism is done for flags.
During the Cold War in 1949, former spinster Sheila's whirlwind marriage to respected newsman Hoyt seems made in heaven, until the devil pokes his nose through the cracks. A Palm Sunday palm reader foretells of trouble ahead, but, as the newlyweds make plans to grow their family, Sheila brushes aside new, disturbing facts about Hoyt's past and the influence of his freethinking mother. However, when a change in job assignment exposes Hoyt's true feelings about the American Dream, she can turn away no longer.
Discover the depths our frightened wife plumbs to protect her cherished American way of life.
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Sins of the Librarian
Murder witness and shy librarian Della is lead down a path fraught with danger, drama, and duplicity by a hungry newsman.
Depression-era librarian Della Frick, suffering from ennui, gets more excitement than she bargains for after witnessing a murder. When a hungry newsman baits the shy miss into helping him find the killer, their adventure leads them into a world of clowns, clergy, spiritualism, dead birds, a mysterious dummy, and an even more mysterious albino.
Join them in this 1931 escapade with an electrifying ending.
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