num_pages: 304
description: "Big Town" is Dallas, perched precariously between could-be and has-been. Big Town is Doug J. Swanson's relentlessly taut, darkly hilarious debut novel. It shines a brilliant light into the dimmer corners of Dallas and introduces an extremely unlikely, extremely engaging hero, Jack Flippo. Jack Flippo was the hottest ticket in the Dallas DA's office until an affair with a drug dealer's wife ended his legal career and his marriage. Now he lives above a garage in a Dallas neighborhood that went from bust to bust without booming. He pays the rent by snooping for Hal Roper, the sort of attorney who runs ads in the TV listings. Hal assigns Jack to tape one of the many strange sexual interludes of motivational speaker Buddy George Jr., who's a fixture of late-night infomercials and Rotary Club breakfasts throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But when Jack hears Buddy threatening his partner for the evening, he rushes to her aid, throwing a scare into Buddy and throwing Sharronda, the tough-talking innocent at Buddy's mercy, into his own reluctant care. He's also unwittingly foiled the plans of Buddy's icy yet steamy assistant, Paula Fontaine. With the aid of wannabe thug/talk-show host Teddy Tunstra II, Paula devises ever-more-byzantine schemes for fleecing Buddy, one of which results in the demise of Sharronda's spectacularly scruffy beau, Delbert, in the motel room just vacated by Buddy. The police run to Buddy for an explanation, Buddy runs to Paula for advice, and Paula sees a way to bleed him after all. Meanwhile, Jack realizes that Paula's at the center of this web only after she's snared him in it with a little liquor and a lot of sex. To save Sharronda from Paula's wrath - and himself from being implicated in Delbert's murder - Jack must find the killer and, harder still, outscheme Paula. Big Town is latter-day noir with a Texas twang, memorable for its pitch-perfect dialogue, its dead-on evocations of Dallas, and its large cast of quirky, convincing persona
language: English
title: Big Town
titlecomplete: Big Town
genres: Mystery
ratings_count: 33
series: Jack Flippo
awards: awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Anthony Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 757411200000
name: CWA New Blood Dagger, awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best First Novel
publisher: Harpercollins (Mm)