Oceanview Publishing is pleased to announce that Stuff to Die For by Don Bruns is one of five finalists for the Lefty Award. An annual awards program sponsored by Left Coast Crime, the Lefty Award is given to the most humorous mystery published each year. This year's Left Coast Crime Awards winners will be announced at this year's annual Left Coast Crime convention, Murder on the Rocks, which will be held March 6-9, 2008, in Denver, Colorado.
In Stuff to Die For (Oceanview Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-933515-10-6, $24.95) Bruns, who brought us entertainment journalist Mick Sever, introduces the most hilarious duo in years - James Lessor and Skip Moore.
Best friends James and Skip are hardly on the fast track. James reports to duty as a line cook at Cap'n Crab, and Skip spends his days selling - or rather, attempting to sell - security systems to people who (a) have no money, and (b) have nothing they care to protect. Although James and Skip aren't exactly upwardly mobile, they're about to get literally mobile when James spends a surprise inheritance on a white box truck. An investment in the future, James surmises, as these two are starting a business. Moore and Lessor, or Lessor and Moore. Have truck, will haul.
Things are looking up when James and Skip land their first client and collect a handsome paycheck. But, this job can get pretty ugly, pretty quickly. While unloading the contents of their first moving job, James and Skip find some unexpected cargo - a bloody human finger. For these two, the phrase "dead-end job" is about to take on a whole new meaning. Instead of chasing the American dream, Skip and James will wind up running for their lives. As they scramble to stay one step ahead of the perpetrators of the gruesome crime, they'll learn that there is some stuff you should never touch - and some stuff to die for.
In a starred review, Booklist praises Bruns' protagonists, and notes that Stuff to Die For "will remind the reader of Tim Dorsey's cast of whacked-out characters but with the narrative voice and feel of Mark Twain's Huck Finn." Library Journal calls Stuff to Die For a "quirkily engaging mystery… a buddy novel as funny as the movie Dumb and Dumber," and Deadly Pleasures, America's premier fan-oriented mystery review, says "Bruns is simply masterful."
A witty, gritty mystery about big dreams, big ideas - and big trouble, Stuff to Die For showcases a sensational new side to award-winning novelist Don Bruns.
Don Bruns is an award-winning novelist, songwriter, musician and advertising executive. He is author of Jamaica Blue, Barbados Heat and South Beach Shakedown, a music murder mystery series featuring entertainment journalist Mick Sever. Bruns' South Beach Shakedown was recently awarded top honors in the mystery/suspense/thriller category of the Best Books 2006 sponsored by USA Book News, and named a finalist in the mystery/suspense category of the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards. Don Bruns divides his time between Ohio and South Florida. Oceanview Publishing (www.oceanviewpub.com) is an independent press headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts.