Laughed to Death

When the five members of the Jokers club make the mistake of playing a prank that backfires on Ruben, the toughest man in town, the free-for-all that erupts nearly demolishes the cherished B & C Café, and it opens the way for the group who has suffered longer and oftener than anybody else in the community to put their wishful thinking into action and begin meting out vigilante comeuppance. Set in a present day, small, farming town that failed stunt kick starts the page-turning action of this mystery novel which unfolds in an off-beat plot sprinkled with quirky characters reminiscent of Richard Prather’s Shell Scott series and the darkly humorous crime fiction of Elmore Leonard.

Each Joker, Red, Sonny, Buddy, Junior, and Mac, has a hand in digging his own grave by indulging himself in his own private hideaway, which includes a shed attached to a chicken coop brimming over with gags, novelties, and trinkets similar to those found in souvenir shops, a tree house storing an exotic porno collection, a tiny soda fountain and candy store called the Sweet Shoppe, a frontier style gun shop, and a Corvette logo exhibit and classic car museum. The Jokers’ individual passions dictate the vigilantes’ disguises as pastel chickens, hookers, sugarplum fairies, and Ninjas when they use symbolic methods to execute them. Only Red evades capture and seemingly escapes payback. The vigilantes’ super stealth secures them anonymity, but neither the police chief nor the townspeople care who did it: they all wanted them dead.