While Drowning in the Desert

by Don Winslow

Overview

30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by the author

Shamus Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Don Winslow combines breathless suspense, zany wit, and whiplash action in his latest novel featuring grad student/private eye Neal Carey. Now Neal is assigned to escort monkeyish octogenarian Natty Silver home from Las Vegas to Palm Springs. Natty, once a burlesque top banana, has a nonstop barrage of corny jokes, an eye for an aging cocktail waitress, and a chronic disappearing act.

When Neal catches up with him, he can see why Natty doesn’t want to go home. Sole witness to a crime, he’s now the quarry of hard-faced suits, a fascist con artist, and a career-track assassin. And bodyguard Neal, scorching through the trackless desert at eighty miles per hour, brooding on his inner child by freezing starlight, and looking down the barrel of one gun too many, is soon dodging vultures and on the brink of a surprise watery grave.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798200739011
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Series:	The Neal Carey Mysteries , #5
Pages:	202
Sales rank:	485,434
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Don Winslow is the author of twenty-four acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers, including six New York Times bestsellers (Savages, The Kings of Cool, The Cartel, The Force, The Border, and City on Fire). Savages was made into a feature film by three-time Oscar-winning writer-director Oliver Stone and a screenplay by Shane Salerno, Winslow, and Stone. Winslow’s epic Cartel trilogy has been adapted for TV and will appear as a weekly series on FX in 2023. The Force is soon to be a major motion picture from 20th Century Studios starring Matt Damon with James Mangold directing from a Scott Frank screenplay. Additional Winslow books are currently in development at Netflix, Warner Brothers, Sony, and Working Title and he has recently written a series of acclaimed short stories for Audible narrated by four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris.

Editorial Reviews

In yet another slapstick mystery, Neal Carey (A Long Walk Up the Waterslide, 1995) is driving across the Nevada desert with the aging, legendary comedian Natty Silver yakking his vaudeville shtick nonstop. Neal is taking Natty home to California from Vegas, but a couple of no-goodniks are after Natty, and the old man won't say why. Chaperoning Natty is hardhe won't shut up, except when he tries to get away and get laid. The bad guys are Heinz, a German money-launderer, and his Lebanese sidekick, Sami, who's dumber than wood. Meanwhile, Neal's girl, Karen, is in a raging hurry for marriage and motherhood; and Hope White (billed as "The Great Hope White"), a Vegas performer no longer as young as she once was, is rekindling an old torch for Natty. The principal players take turns hogging the narrative, and soon everyone converges for the big dramatic showdown, with the damsels predictably imperiled by Heinz. Okay. Maybe it's not that dramatic. Winslow's style isn't flashy, and his notion of suspense is downright laughable. Yet he has a way with crisp dialogue (or, in Natty's case, monologue), and the laughs keep coming. Neal isn't a tough guy, but he's pretty lucky. Lucky enough to find water in the sand and ferry the irascible Natty, who claims to have taught a young Lou Costello "Who's on First," to safety. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

You gotta love vaudeville, right? As annoying as those unbelievably corny jokes and rheumy-eyed comedians might be, there's something endearing about them. Well, Winslow's latest mystery is a lot like vaudeville, corny but endearing and guaranteed to provoke a laugh. Neal Carey "does favors" for an organization called Friends of the Family (read, Mob). His latest mission sounds simple: pick up octogenarian Natty Silver in Vegas and return him to his Palm Springs condo. But Natty is determined not to go home. It seems he has witnessed an arson and knows the arsonist is waiting for him. So Natty pulls every shenanigan imaginable to stay in Vegas, from shacking up with a luscious lounge singer to stealing Neal's car and disappearing into the desert. Neal is ready to let Natty fend for himself, but the old vaudevillian has a few last tricks up his sleeve. A thoroughly enjoyable comic mystery.

Emily Melton

Guaranteed to provoke a laugh…A thoroughly enjoyable comic mystery.”

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