Overview
Winner of San Francisco Book Festival's Best Sci Fi Book!
From the writer whose work has been called "truly, hellishly gritty" (Los Angeles Times) comes a gnarled mystery with shades of Philip K. Dick and James Ellroy.
Jim Nisbet is a cult favorite in Europe and it's easy to see why. He's "a lot more than just good . . . his style has overtones of Walker Percy's smooth southern satin, but his characters—losers, grifters, con men—hark back to the days of James M. Cain's twisted images of morality," writes the Toronto Globe-Mail. In the tradition of Jim Thompson and Damon Runyon, Jim Nisbet is too good to miss and Windward Passage is a masterpiece that raises the bar even for a master like Nisbet.
In the parallel near-future, a ship named for a jellyfish sinks into the Caribbean with its captain chained to the mast. Left behind is a logbook missing ten pages, presidential DNA hidden in a brick of smuggled cocaine, and a nearly- completed novel. Tipsy, the dead sailor's sister, and Red Means, his erstwhile employer, travel from San Francisco to the Caribbean and back as they attempt to unravel a mystery that rapidly widens from death at sea to international conspiracy.
With verve and humor to match the Illuminati Trilogy, Nisbet has fashioned an engaging facsimile of our modern world, albeit with snappier dialogue, amped-up technology, and even more clearly stated political prejudices. "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved," writes Germany's Die Welt. Pick up Windward Passageand see why.
Synopsis
Winner of San Francisco Book Festival's Best Sci Fi Book!
From the writer whose work has been called "truly, hellishly gritty" (Los Angeles Times) comes a gnarled mystery with shades of Philip K. Dick and James Ellroy.
Jim Nisbet is a cult favorite in Europe and it's easy to see why. He's "a lot more than just good . . . his style has overtones of Walker Percy's smooth southern satin, but his characters—losers, grifters, con men—hark back to the days of James M. Cain's twisted images of morality," writes the Toronto Globe-Mail. In the tradition of Jim Thompson and Damon Runyon, Jim Nisbet is too good to miss and Windward Passage is a masterpiece that raises the bar even for a master like Nisbet.
In the parallel near-future, a ship named for a jellyfish sinks into the Caribbean with its captain chained to the mast. Left behind is a logbook missing ten pages, presidential DNA hidden in a brick of smuggled cocaine, and a nearly- completed novel. Tipsy, the dead sailor's sister, and Red Means, his erstwhile employer, travel from San Francisco to the Caribbean and back as they attempt to unravel a mystery that rapidly widens from death at sea to international conspiracy.
With verve and humor to match the Illuminati Trilogy, Nisbet has fashioned an engaging facsimile of our modern world, albeit with snappier dialogue, amped-up technology, and even more clearly stated political prejudices. "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved," writes Germany's Die Welt. Pick up Windward Passageand see why.
Publishers Weekly
The compelling tale of a dead smuggler known only as Charley forms the backdrop for Nisbet's ambitious if meandering thriller set largely in the Caribbean. When Charley's sailboat sinks in shallow water with him chained to the mast, Charley's sister, Tipsy, and his drug lord boss, Red Means, launch their own personal salvage operation. Hidden among many bricks of cocaine below the ship's deck is thought to be a DNA sample from an unidentified U.S. president. Together, Tipsy and Red try to figure out who killed Charley and why someone would want some president's DNA, guided by the incomplete log they find in the dry part of the partially submerged boat. Nisbet (Dark Companion) has his own eccentric plotting style that tends to create parallel worlds within his main story. Long-winded and often tediously detailed, these digressions detract from an otherwise addictive narrative. (Apr.)