Review: Ed Noon and the Treasure Hunt
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 10, 2013
This is the 8th Ed Noon novel by Avallone. Ed Noon, in case you've been living under a rock, was a noir era PI that worked out of a small office called the Mouse Auditorium and eventually became a super spy. Always quick paced, enjoyable reading, there hasn't been a clunker in the bunch. And this one is definitely not a clunker.It begins with Noon complaining that the day a fur-bearing, gun-toting blonde ordered him to strip was the dizziest day of his career.  He then explains what a helluva a day it was although it began with his year of having his license suspended ending with a phone call from Capt Monks to come and pick up his gun and license.But, being Ed Noon, he never gets there.  Fate intervenes in the shape of a Tommy gun firing out of a Packard.  The only others on the street were a blind man and two little kids, Titi and Tania.  Noon takes three bullets and wakes up in a hospital bef five days later.  Titi and the blind man are not so lucky.  Yep, this one starts with a bang.Weeks later, a girl bounces out of the elevator.  "She was fully clothed, but she might as well have been wearing nothing."  "She was sex like in the Monroe Calendar."  "She had an aura that was all female, tigress type."  "She moved in closer, her burlesque queen hips undulating like twin snakes."  "She had the biggest bustline since the Florida coast."And, this was one of the bad ones who thought Noon had something of value.  What he had, he hadn't a clue.  But, "a dame that's sore at you and has a sub machine gun is no laughing matter."This book is filled with blondes and bombs as well as naked corpses, strippers, and, of course, Chinese laundries.  It all ties together in the end with some help from some Texas gangsters.And that's all before Noon meets Carver Callaway Drill, the meanest man in Texas.  And he's going to rope them all in until someone gives up the key to the buried treasure.  "For a guy bigger than the RCA building, he moved pretty fast when he had to."Another great Ed Noon mystery.  Good stuff.