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Overview
“BITTERLY FUNNY . . . [A] SLEEK FIRST NOVEL . . . NOIR CRIME . . . HAS FOUND A STERLING NEW CHAMPION IN PHILLIPS.”–The New York Times Book Review
“A FUTURE HARD-BOILED CLASSIC–TIGHT, COLD, AND CACKLING WITH IRONY. On Christmas Eve [in Wichita], a mob lawyer is skipping town with the cash. But in this boozy, neo-noir world–James M. Cain meets George V. Higgins–the best-laid plans of bagmen turn brutal.”
–The Dallas Morning News
“OMINOUS, ACTION-PACKED. . . This is a confident, wry debut . . . [that] may remind readers of Fargo or Pulp Fiction.”
–Detroit Free Press
“I SIMPLY CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT SCOTT PHILLIPS WILL DO NEXT. [This] funny, tough first novel felt like it was written by an old pro, an Elmore Leonard we’ve never heard about who’s discovered a place where the criminals are really dumb, the low-lifes are oh-so-fun to watch and, if somebody just happens to get what he deserves, there’s no one to blame.”
–RICHARD RUSSO Author of Straight Man
“A DARKLY COMIC, SOMETIMES BRUTAL PIECE OF NOIR FICTION.”
–The Denver Post
Finalist for the Hammett Prize
Synopsis
“BITTERLY FUNNY . . . [A] SLEEK FIRST NOVEL . . . NOIR CRIME . . . HAS FOUND A STERLING NEW CHAMPION IN PHILLIPS.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“A FUTURE HARD-BOILED CLASSIC–TIGHT, COLD, AND CACKLING WITH IRONY. On Christmas Eve [in Wichita], a mob lawyer is skipping town with the cash. But in this boozy, neo-noir world–James M. Cain meets George V. Higgins–the best-laid plans of bagmen turn brutal.”
–The Dallas Morning News
“OMINOUS, ACTION-PACKED. . . This is a confident, wry debut . . . [that] may remind readers of Fargo or Pulp Fiction.”
–Detroit Free Press
“I SIMPLY CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT SCOTT PHILLIPS WILL DO NEXT. [This] funny, tough first novel felt like it was written by an old pro, an Elmore Leonard we’ve never heard about who’s discovered a place where the criminals are really dumb, the low-lifes are oh-so-fun to watch and, if somebody just happens to get what he deserves, there’s no one to blame.”
–RICHARD RUSSO
Author of Straight Man
“A DARKLY COMIC, SOMETIMES BRUTAL PIECE OF NOIR FICTION.”
–The Denver Post
Finalist for the Hammett Prize
Publishers Weekly
Everywhere you look, trashy people are doing trashy things in this darkly delicious debut comic thriller. Set in the middle of a Christmas Eve blizzard in 1979 Wichita, the novel opens with lawyer-turned-petty-mobster Charlie Arglist marking time before an important meeting with his shady partner, Vic Cavanaugh. After this meeting he plans to leave Wichita hurriedly with a load of cash and, presumably, the enmity of its rightful owner, Bill Gerard, the local head of a larger regional crime syndicate. Charlie and Vic run a string of strip bars around Wichita for Gerard, from which they have been skimming cash on the sly. But Charlie, who sets out to visit all the outposts in his "empire" one last time, lets a drunken spirit of Yuletide sentimentality (or maybe spite) trigger an unprecedented (and therefore highly visible) string of improvisations. He comps some of his dancers' shakedown money, causing a riot at a club; he unwisely lets his would-be girlfriend in on one of Gerard's blackmail scams. Then he and his ex-brother-in-law crash the Christmas gathering of their cumulative ex-family, setting off a whole new string of disasters. For Charlie there is only the imminent future of his escape with Gerard's money, and it isn't until he discovers a fresh corpse buried behind Vic's empty house that he realizes that his future isn't what it used to be. Newcomer Phillips's seedy characters are skillfully developed, particularly the semiremorseful Charlie. The frigid Midwestern setting is the perfect frame for Charlie's wretched situation; the time period emphasizes the low-level viciousness of Charlie's contemporaries, and Phillips wastes no time in piling up the bodies. Charlie's final confrontation with Gerard will likely leave readers nauseated with laughter--altogether not a bad way to debut in crime fiction. Agent, Nicole Aragi at Watkins-Loomis. Rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Our ReviewWichita's Slick and Slimy
The setting may be seedy, but in The Ice Harvest, the debut novel from Scott Phillips, the writing is top-notch all the way through.
It's Christmas Eve, 1979, but Charlie Arglist lives in a world where Christmas, family, and presents all take a back seat to the schemes of the people who inhabit the underbelly of Wichita, Kansas. Tonight, however, if everything goes according to plan, Charlie's getting out of Wichita a rich man.
Charlie is an attorney, but he's the kind of lawyer who spends much less time in the courtroom than he does paying off cops and holding compromising photos of politicians over their heads. His business associates own strip clubs, and his friends, if you can call them that, are the people he knows from the bars he frequents. When he bumps into his ex-brother-in-law, who is so drunk that he needs a ride home to the Christmas celebration being given by Charlie's former parents-in-law, Charlie realizes he can't even remember the last time he saw his kids and wonders if he should even bother saying good-bye to them before he skips town.
As Charlie moves through Wichita, trying to kill time before 2am, when he meets with Vic to finalize their quick getaway, planned for Christmas morning, it becomes clear that as vile as Charlie is, he's probably the most decent person he knows. Everybody he knows will gladly lie, cheat, and steal to get anything, preying on any weakness to take full advantage of people. Charlie is no saint, but his planned ticket out of town doesn't include hurting innocent people or murder. At least, that's not what he has planned. But as events spin out of his control, Charlie has to do whatever it takes to stay alive until Christmas morning.
It is a testament to Scott Phillips's writing and humorous irony that he has created a reprehensible protagonist you can't help but root for. The other characters who orbit Charlie range from worse to worst and definitely deserve whatever they get, but Phillips makes it fun to watch these people in action -- even if their actions are pretty odious. Phillips's easy style makes The Ice Harvest a quick and enjoyable read, but there are enough plot twists that the reader never has the upper hand. This sleazy, sexy novel is like a decadent sin -- the worse these characters behave, the more fun it is.
--Jennifer Jarett