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Big Ugly [Hardcover]

William F. Weld (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)


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Book Description

October 14, 1999

That night I dreamed of Detective Lieutenant Rudy Solano, my deer-hunting buddy, my fellow crime-fighter, who got me my job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn. My dead buddy....

Then I saw the money on the bed, I saw the cheap metal bedpost, the bare lightbulb. My one-room apartment....That was the first time I took too much money, money that didn't belong to me. Thanks, Rudy.

Then, still in his police uniform, Rudy Solano was a judge, pointing at me, lecturing me: How could you do this? I was a prisoner in the dock, I was on trial....

Solano's face began to sweat and shake, as I had seen it do in life. He fell from the judge's bench, landing in the snow, in hunting clothes covered with blood, as I had found him when Sergeant Gatto drove me up to Jaffrey that Saturday night. I was there, in the snow, in my dream. The yellow tape from the police barrier stuck to my clothes. It was still there the next day when I walked into my office in the Hart Senate Office Building. Everyone was staring at it. How am I going to explain this snow, this tape?

Fresh from the scary world of international organized crime in Weld's bestselling and hilarious Mackerel by Moonlight, ex-prosecutor and newly elected senator Terry Mullally, one of the most charming, handsome, and fickle rogues to hit the fiction pages in recent memory, finds that his old enemies may still have murder on their minds and that new ones are laying traps for him.

In his first novel, which Kirkus described as "Primary Colors meets George V. Higgins," and People magazine called "a blisteringly funny suspense tale," we followed Mullally's rise from assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn to district attorney in Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate. Now he has married and is madly in love with the gorgeous widow of a shady murdered businessman, trying to shed the mobsters and cops who know his secrets and find his way through a new minefield. With good reason, Mullally sees danger everywhere. Does his wife know what he has done to get where he is? Does the new head of the criminal division of the Justice Department? Will the whole world?

Mullally is quickly drawn into the schemes of loose money and political vendettas. Two of his fellow Democratic senators are vying for his support in the primaries of 2000, but Mullally admires the maverick Republican vice president, Martha Holloway, who also wants to be president. He has a lot of balls to keep in the air.

Fast-paced, funny, sexy, Big Ugly follows the insouciant Mullally as he pulls off another surprise ending to save his precious skin.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Picking up where Mackerel by Moonlight left off, this wryly amusing and cleverly plotted D.C. political novel by former Massachusetts governor Weld features all the hijinks and close-to-unethical behavior one now expects from the Washington elite. Newly elected senator Terry Mullally, fresh from his Mackerel adventures, is getting a crash course in Politics 101. Two Southern senators, Happy Gilliam of Texas and Anson Vivian of West Virginia, are plotting runs for the presidency, and each is looking for backing from the freshman senator. First, Mullally falls under the influence of the exuberant Gilliam, then becomes much closer to Vivian, taking meditative weekends at Vivian's country home in Big Ugly, W.Va. The dilemma of deciding whom to supportAand a few rookie mistakesAback Mullally into a tough corner. But even before he figures out how to extricate himself, an old friend and colleague from his DA days is appointed the new head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Although good-natured and quick-witted, Mullally has been no saint. How much does his old friend know about his dealings with the Chinese mafia and the death of a corrupt cop? Or about the circumstances that led to Mullaly's marriage to the widow of a murdered businessman? Everything threatens to fall apart when Mullally is contacted at his office by criminal Olie Wing, who knows abou Mullally's past transgressions. Matters get worse when Mullally and his wife are invited by the vice-president, Martha Holloway, to enjoy a retreat at Camp David. While there, Mullally catches Gilliam having an affair with the daughter of Gilliam's best friend, a Supreme Court Justice, and later is witness to a heated conversation between the v.p. and a major lobbyist. Clever word play and a knowledge of the law help Mullally keep his head above water, defend Holloway against an extortion charge, and take the right tack with Gilliam. At the end of this intelligent, energetic and somewhat cynical novel, no one's the wiser but MullallyAwho, as he says, can "still aspire to the highest offices in the land." (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Six months into his tenure as the junior senator from Massachusetts, Terrence Mullally is on the brink of failure. The 35-year-old politician has already had a high-powered career as a criminal prosecutor in his native Boston, but once inside the beltway, he gets shmoozed and shellacked by a parade of Washingtonians, including two senatorial powers with presidential ambitions (one with a home in Big Ugly, WV), lobbyists, and the vice president (who, not surprisingly, has presidential ambitions of his own). Mullally falls for their cordiality and subtle bribes and sinks into the muck of dirty politicsAbefore he rallies and pulls himself out. Former Massachusetts Governor Weld, whose best-selling first novel, Mackerel by Moonlight, featured Terry as an assistant U.S. attorney, has again delivered a suspenseful, hilarious book filled with real people (with real problems) and crystal-clear depictions of politics at its best and worst. For all fiction collections.
-ABarbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 14, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0684853477
  • ISBN-13: 978-1402829291
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,814,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Stepping softly on the slippery stones, December 2, 1999
By 
Chris Horrocks (Barrington, Illinois) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Big Ugly (Hardcover)
I would like to be William Weld's neighbor. I've never met him but he must be a very entertaining fellow.

Terry Mullally, our hero - and it would be very difficult not to associate with him, is guided by some deep instinct that may rely on luck. But I don't think so. WW has painted a picture of a natural and charming navigator.

This book was a delight. I am impatient for the next story of Terry's political career.

I think the author must have a lot of friends in West by God Virginia - he describes Terry's visits to the State with great sympathy and respect for the particular characteristics of it's native families.

The story climaxes well - but, it was one of those stories where reading each page was a pleasure.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A really excellent read, September 23, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Big Ugly (Hardcover)
Written from an insider's perspective, BIG UGLY is an entertaining,satirical look at presidential and congressional politics. William F. Weldpaints a political picture that makes Animal House appear to be a tame, frat house. Terry is a superb antihero type of character who makes the sleaze flow. His spouse provides amusing, anthropological glimpses into the DC zoo. The support cast of legislative and executive Beltway Bandits add a feeling of authenticity that makes understandable the ironic contradiction of contracting out under commercial activities Vs enforcement of the Davis-Bacon Act. Like MACKEREL BY MOONLIGHT, the BIG UGLY is an entertaining, but somewhat frightening political satire.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that gets better each time, May 20, 2000
This review is from: Big Ugly (Hardcover)
I work in Gov. Weld's former haunt, the Mass. Legislature, and know what an entertaining fellow he is. What I was not prepared for is how good a WRITER he is. A quick wit and good humor don't always translate into an ability to plot and compose, but the Gov. sure does have it. Now that New York has him, I hope he can find even bigger arenas for Terry Mullally, a murderer, thief and first rate politician. What next? The Vice Presidency or the Cabinet?
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