LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH: Reptile Wines by John Hewitt
Saturday, February 11th, 2017 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com
John Hewitt’s newest novel Reptile Wines opens with a zinger—the race-is-on hallmark of his four previous comic novels. Miles Trout is a tour guide for a low frills wine country tour outfit when he’s called from the break room by fellow drivers to find his pal dead—for a second time.
Miles vows to find the truth behind the suspicious public death of his cousin, Reptile Wines co-owner Lucky Tarpitz. When the corpse disappears, Miles is pulled into a dark world of loan sharks, money launderers, charlatan diviners and overzealous federal agents.
Lucky’s scheming mother Angelina, the high-voltage spark behind Reptile Wines, continually leads Miles astray while other distraught relatives mount a campaign of dangerous ambushes. In his frantic search, Miles spends extravagantly on Lucky’s lazy racehorse Love Blisters and carries on a stumbling affair with female jockey and former exotic dancer, Pixie Limber.
Miles thinks he may find Lucky when he unearths the hideout of an allegedly dead winemaker and astronomer who’s been inviting space aliens to the wine country. The ATF and FBI find their man, but Miles knows one more place south of the border where Lucky may be resting—he’s determined to find him, dead or alive.
With a snaky vintner, horseracing, relationship revenge and interstellar aliens—Reptile Wines is a rare-vintage farce for readers who enjoy the hilarity of Carl Hiaasen and Christopher Moore.
Over the past 40 years John Hewitt’s films and books have explored a mosaic of cultures and nationalities. A native of Los Angeles, he grew up in the smog of Southern California and, at various times, has worked as a newspaper and television reporter and editor, magazine writer, producer, cameraman, university professor and author of news writing textbooks as well as five novels. He has traveled in Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. His first three novels, Drone Baloney, Stranger in Baja, and Under the Padre’s Thumb, explored the bewildering culture in communities in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. He currently lives in Northern California.