Early Review

Hard luck was private investigator Hammer Spade’s constant companion until the day a gorgeous model named Alonia Lockheart retained him for a mission.  The case sounded straight forward enough:  locate a husband who is a known recluse and return him to his wife.

What Hammer did not bargain for was the vast difference in the sophistication between husband and wife.  Alonia and her family are extremely well to do and enjoy the life style that accompanies the wealthy.  Bernard Hatcher, the missing husband, feels more at home with people who think that anyone who drives a 1993 Chrysler Town and Country Mini Van is as wealthy as you can become.  As Hammer solves the mystery, he is bounced back and forth between these two worlds.  He adapts quite well to the cultural extremes and the reader gets some very good laughs while the plot twists and turns.

E.B. Alston’s descriptive powers come into full force as he subtlety plays off  “red-necked” vs. “ultra suave” in personal appearance, places of residence, choice of vehicles, and financial attitudes.  Alston does not neglect the geographical setting. He paints an excellent picture of the back roads of Georgia and their attributes, both good and bad. A just for fun activity is to keep in mind the name of all the eating establishments mentioned.

This is a captivating story with an up beat plot that does not include malice, jealously, or bloodshed.  The characters are all somewhat eccentric, but they harmonize well together.  Hammer Spade enjoys who he is, adapts to the current situation as needed and pulls off his manipulations with a touch of finesse.  The groundwork is nicely laid for his next adventure, and one can eagerly anticipate the future activities of Hammer Spade.

Judy Jacobs, Literary Critic 

June 10, 2006, St. Joseph, MO

Excerpts from the story

Page 10-11:

My head wasn’t working too well but if her husband was missing, it must be pretty serious. A guy wouldn’t leave a gal like her just sitting around in broad daylight. Then I remembered something very important.

            “How did you get here?” I asked.

“I drove.”

“What did you drive here in?”

“My car.”

I gathered my strength. “What kind of car ma’am?”

“A Jag XJ8.”

I sat up in a hurry, got up and lurched out of my office to the front door. When I looked out I saw my personal downtown watchdog, a dude named Shidee Calloway, checking her car out.

“Mr. Calloway, what are you doing?”

“Nothin, Mr. Spade. Nothin at all. I was just admiring the lady’s wheels. That’s all.”

“I better let you know she’s a good friend of mine and if I see so much as one scratch on her car, you know the consequences.”

“Yessir, Mr. Spade. I know the consequences real good an I’m seeing that nothin bad happens to the fine lady’s car.”

“Very good, Mr. Calloway.”

“Yessir, Mr. Spade. You can always count on me.”

“Thanks. And the fine lady thanks you.”

“Yessir, Mr. Spade, I know that too.”

I closed the door and walked back into my office. She had taken a seat in the only dust-free chair in the room.

Page 20:

She pulled a fat, heavy looking envelope from her purse. “Here’s fifty thousand. That ought to get you started. And if he can’t be found in two months, I want an option for two more months.”

I tried my best not to show how dumbfounded I was. Fifty thousand for two months! She really wanted to find that lucky guy!

Page 24:

Minerva was a huge surprise. She was a very athletic looking version of Alonia except she was about six-two. She definitely looked like she could be Alonia’s sister. Plus she was the most businesslike woman I had ever met. It seemed like she knew everything and everybody. How she knew so much about the bail bond business is beyond me.

Page 52-53:

I handed him the photograph of Hatcher. “I’m trying to find him.”

“That’s the one that was here just like Agnes said.”

“Is he staying around here?”

“Naw. He drove here from somewhere else to mail that letter.”

“Did you see his car and maybe the license plate?”

“It was a brown car. Pretty new. It had Georgia plates.”

“What make was it?”

“Don’t remember. Maybe a Ford or a Plymouth. Might have been a Chevrolet. It was an American car, not one of them rice burners.”

I concealed my joy at receiving such specific information. “Was there any thing that would indicate where the car was from?”

“It was a four-door. I remember that. Oh yeah, it had a decal on the trunk that said ‘Clem’s Used Cars, Chatsworth, Georgia’. I remembered that ‘cause my name is Clem.”

“Isn’t Chatsworth up near Chattanooga?”

“Yeah, kinda east of Dalton.”

“That is a long way to come to mail a letter.”

“Well, he didn’t do nothing else while he was in Statenville. He came to town, bought the envelope, scribbled a note, stuffed it in the envelope, addressed it and mailed it to Durham, North Carolina. Then he got in that brown car and drove back towards the interstate.”

That was a pretty succinct report and I guessed I had exhausted this source of information.

Page 59-60

Clem, the used car dealer, was just as big as Clem the mailman. He was sitting behind a dusty desk in a grossly overworked executive chair smoking a cigar.

“What can I do for you, buddy?” he asked when I walked in.

“I’m looking for a man who was driving a brown American-made car with your decal on the trunk.”

“Why are you looking for him? Did he steal something?”

“No. I’m a private investigator hired by his wife to find him. She thinks he’s missing and may be in trouble.”

“Why ain’t the law looking for him if he’s missing?”

“They don’t believe he’s missing. He’s a reclusive writer who disappears every few months to write a book.”

“Why does his wife think he’s missing?”

“He wrote her a note saying he’d be home about three weeks ago but he didn’t show up.”

“Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe she’s too ugly to go home to and he found somebody prettier.”

“His wife is the model, Venus.”

“You are kidding!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then he must be either dead or chained to a tree somewhere in the woods if he didn’t go home to see her. That is the sexiest woman I have ever seen.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me either.”

Page 67:

Before I began the long drive back to Durham, I went by Snodine’s house one more time where I got a huge surprise. The house was vacant. I got out of my truck, walked over to the house and looked inside a window. The rooms and the walls were bare. They had left like thieves in the middle of the night.

On my way to Durham, I thought about Bernard and Snodine’s odd behavior. As near as I could tell, no laws had been broken and I couldn’t come up with a reason for them to behave like fugitives.

A normal man in Bernard’s position would tell his wife he had found somebody else and, after the lawyers got their pound of flesh, that would be that.

Page 70:

I went to Northgate Mall and bought both of Hatcher’s books. Maybe they would give me some kind of clue about why he was behaving so weird.

I went home, opened a beer, got in my recliner and started to read. When I came to the appreciation page the first thing I noticed was the names of those he thanked for providing “invaluable guidance and assistance” included S.J. Pickett. I picked up the second book and she was listed in that one too. So, it looked like Snodine had been helping him all along. But what kind of help did she provide? If she had been prettier, I could guess it was an intimate kind of “assistance.” But I had trouble believing he had any romantic interest in Snodine J. Pickett.

Page 79:

Everybody was wild about my new beautiful, accomplished, six-foot-two inches tall, blonde assistant with a redneck name and a voice of intoxicating melody. I used to be a nobody. Now I’m famous and respectable because I’m Minerva’s boss.

I’ve learned that in this life that you take the good that falls into your lap. My bruised ego was consoled by eighty thousand dollars in the bank that I didn’t have ten days ago.  And, if I didn’t mess this up, I bet there would be even more dough in the bank when I returned next week.

Page 107:

Elizabeth Garner was very helpful. She was a well preserved fifty-year old woman of considerable attractiveness with an excellent figure, pleasant features, a sweet Georgia smile and jet black hair. She was dressed like a secretary from forty years ago, in heels, hose, a classic navy skirt and white long sleeve blouse.

She greeted me with her best smile when I walked into her office. “May I help you, sir?” She sounded like Scarlet O’Hara might have in Gone With the Wind.

“My name is Hammer Spade. I need a letterhead and your permission to use your office address when I rent a post office box downtown.”

“And what is this for, Mr. Spade?”

“I’m a private investigator and I’m looking for somebody who has slipped away. I’ve come up with a plan to find out where he went.”

“Mr. Spade, I cannot involve myself in anything illegal. Most of my work comes from the legal community in Dahlonega and I cannot sully my reputation.”

Sully her reputation! Shades of southernisms. “What I want to do is not illegal but I must conceal my identity.”

“What has this person done to make you want to find him, Mr. Spade?”

“He ran away from his wife.”

That immediately put her on my side. “You mean you are looking for a scoundrel who has abandoned his loving wife?”

“Exactly.”

She put a determined expression on her face. “Then I will help you do anything that is not illegal, Mr. Spade. What is that awful man’s name?”

“Bernard Hatcher.”

“Bernie!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even know Bernie was married.”

Page 145-146:

The house became quiet. I heard one of them snoring. I figured now was the time to get free. Bodine was right about the groundhog hide shoelaces. They were tough and didn’t give no matter how hard I struggled.

Then I heard rats moving about the room. I hate rats. Live ones, dead ones, I hate them all. I felt them sniffing my hands. So I was about be eaten alive by rats before Bodine can dump my remains down a deserted mine shaft.