Stein, Stoned
Harry Stein was a countercultural hero in the sixties, thanks to Smoke This Book, his cult classic on growing weed. Now he’s a small-time PI and hasn’t smoked dope for six years, afraid of losing joint custody of his daughter, Angie. Then two cases bring his old life back to centerstage: he’s hired to recover a marijuana grower’s new crop, bound for the medical marijuana market but ripped off by unsavory types hoping to sell it on the street, and his regular gig providing security for a perfume company heats up when it appears a soon-to-be-launched shampoo has been pirated by the creator’s former lover. Naturally, the two cases are intertwined, and soon enough Harry is helter-skeltering his way between L.A. and Amsterdam, trying to solve a murder, find the dope, and keep the shampoo out of harm’s way. The plotting gets a little frenetic toward the end, but who cares? Harry fits comfortably into that delightfully comic line of slacker sleuths—a tradition that runs from the Fletch novels through Newton Thornburg’s 1976 cult classic Cutter and Bone and, of course, The Big Lebowski. The Dude abides with Harry Stein. --Bill Ott