 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
"Crime writer and ladies' man Hector Lassiter (Head Games) makes a return appearance in McDonald's outstanding second series effort." 5.5 x 8.5/240 pages/September |
|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . | ||
Toros & Torsos summary Hector Lassiter is a legendary crime novelist who writes what he lives and lives what he writes. But Hector frequently goes a step beyond, drawing friends and lovers into the tawdry and turbulent territory of his fiction. Now, the large-living pulp author has at last met his match in the ultimate performance artist: a phantom killer committed to the art of murder… a blood-thirsty provocateur who leaves a string of macabre tableaus modeled on famous works of surrealist painting and photography… |
||
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . | ||
Praise for Toros & Torsos "Crime writer and ladies' man Hector Lassiter (Head Games) makes a return appearance in McDonald's outstanding second series effort. Spanning over a quarter-century and moving from Miami to Hollywood with stops in Spain and Cuba for a civil war and a revolution, respectively, this novel displays McDonald's storytelling and writing skills. The novel begins during the great Florida hurricane of 1935, when Hec comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress. Quickly falling for her, he is devastated when she turns up as the latest victim of an apparent serial killer. But this is not the end of the story: McDonald is only getting started with a tale involving a serial killer, a dysfunctional family, the world of abstract art, and a supporting cast that includes Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles. McDonald wows with his writing, which seems effortless despite using many voices, and his book will keep readers rapt. Highly recommended for all public libraries." "Spanning the years from 1935 to 1959, Edgar®-finalist McDonald's second novel to feature crime novelist Hector Lassiter (after 2007's Head Games) deftly mixes myth, history and a serial killer who arranges dead bodies to resemble surrealistic art. Lassiter, whose work embodies the "write what you live and live what you write" ethos, loves hard, drinks hard... As a popular author, Lassiter interacts with such notables as Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, whom the author skillfully animates. Other celebrities of the day make cameo appearances. Solidly grounded in such actual events as the Key West hurricane of 1935, the Spanish Civil War and Cuba's last days before Castro, McDonald's imaginative tale takes an enjoyably different approach to art and murder." "In Hec Lassiter’s debut (Head Games, 2007), the raffish crime novelist was menaced by Mexican federales and wizened banditos, CIA agents, and lunatic Yalies, all determined to wrest from Hec the head of Pancho Villa. Head Games was an over-the-top road trip through the history and myth of mid-twentieth-century America. Toros and Torsos is similar but very different. This time Hec is palling with Hemingway in Key West and preparing for what proves to be the devastating 1935 hurricane. A young woman there is disemboweled, and her torso is stuffed with machine parts. Hec immediately connects the murder to surrealist art and journeys to the battlefront of the Spanish civil war, Hollywood, and Cuba in search of the artistic murderer. Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Salvador Dali, and John Dos Passos all turn up in juicy cameos, and the details on the hurricane, the Spanish war, and surrealism are the product of careful research. This is less of a romp than Head Games, darker and richer, with Hec less a cartoon action hero and more a fully fleshed lead character." "Craig McDonald's novel is astounding, covering everything from top class mystery to a real depiction of such notaries as The Surrealists and Hemingway and literally makes them live and breathe. I always felt I had a good grasp on Hemingway, now I feel I know him, such is the sheer artistry of the writing. This is granite poetry in all its stone glory. Cross Cormac McCarthy with Craig Holden and throw in the wizardry of Pete Dexter, then you come close to realizing how amazing this novel is." "In his lush, sprawling second novel, Toros & Torsos, Craig McDonald draws together both the timeliest markers of mid-century America—modernism, surrealism, film noir, pulp fiction, communism—and the eternal touchstones of classic crime literature—desire, chaos, obsession and loss. It is a bold, bloody landscape, but McDonald never lets its scale become so big that we lose sight of the lively characters at its dark center. Wily and wistful Hector Lassiter, a complicated, rueful and haunted Ernest Hemingway and dozens more draw us close to their chests, anchor us, win our favor and, in the end, break our hearts." "A bold, ambitious, genre-bending novel from the talented Craig McDonald." |
||
| .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . | ||
 |
Edgar®—nominee Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and several online crime fiction sites.
|
|
