Meet Eddie, a smart-ass, overly-educated barkeeper of The Hyde Out Inn and never-to-be courtroom lawyer, as he tries to figure out the connection between John-John, his sorta brother, and a Chicago Capone-era gangster dead for the past forty-five years. Charles, their sorta father and mentor, unalive for three years now, has not really left them. He had taught Eddie a lot and was planning on teaching him a lot more. Instead, he left him a lotta dough, a real lotta dough. He left him John-John as well. John-John is a gleeful, below-average-intelligence, maintenance man who was always at The Hyde Out Inn. He always needed some Special Ed, and under Charles’ care and tutelage, he received it. Now, it was Eddie’s turn to give. Charles may be dead to the rest of us, but he still is a help to Eddie in his businesses, his life and his attempt to help John-John “sleep good.”
The search for truth leads Eddie and his team-of-investigators to old newspapers, Lincoln Park, The Museum of Natural History, a Benjamin Franklin statue, the trial of the Chicago Seven, and three different courtrooms and judges.
Eddy starts his investigation with old newspapers and library research help from his friend, Tribune John, who uses his morgue to uncover vital information, and from Geri, the sexy-university-librarian, who seduced Eddie when she was almost twice his age, and continues her ways with him in the stacks. This information is a start but leads nowhere important, so Eddie turns to his good friend and patron, Stosh the Cop, for help. Stosh is a decorated Homicide Detective of thirty years, a noir throwback to when homicide dicks looked as if they belonged in a B-movie. Along the way, Eddie obtains help from Officer Gilly, a beat cop, who knows the neighborhood and its characters even where and what they drink and the time they do it. Last but not least, Eddie has his conversations with Charles, the 1930’s entrepreneur who started The Businesses. Charles might be dead to the rest of the world, but not to Eddy who continues his education under this erudite gentleman who was also a gentle man. Even lesser characters are forces to be reckoned with as they go about their business. Jordan, the law student; English Dave, Eddie’s bartending majordomo; Eddie’s Ma, who now runs his The Businesses.
Ed Weiss has written this well-crafted and entertaining novel with his cast of characters who after meeting you will love and wait to meet again in their next appearances in Felony Murder, Sometimes the Innocent Pay, The Droopy-Eyed Bank Robber, The Gringo Mayor of Ajijic, and the yet unwritten mysteries to follow.
This first novel is a mystery that includes enough side-stories of living life and running a business to help the reader start on earning a degree in both of them. Hammering Nails Can Be Murder is the debut work of fiction by a major new old storyteller.
In another life, Ed was a Full Professor of Economics and Business Ethics at National-Louis University, Chicago, IL. He was responsible for the development of his University’s MBA Program and one of the world’s first on-line Business Administration Programs. He has taught for Bethel College, a Mennonite school, Aquinas College, a Catholic one and the University of Maryland, in Europe. He was also the host of Ed-Itorial Weiss-Cracks in East Lansing, MI. Now, he is just a retired old-fart and an author in sunny Mexico.
