What do the Merlin Game, the Penny Skim, the Doolally Snadoodle, and the Afterparty Snuke have in common? They're all the work of world-class con artist and master bafflegabber Radar Hoverlander. Radar's been "on the snuke" since childhood, but he's still looking for his California Roll, the one big scam that'll set him up in sushi for life.Trouble arrives in the stunning, sassy package of Allie Quinn-either the last true innocent or a con artist so slick she makes Radar look like a Quaker. Radar's hapless sidekick, Vic Mirplo, a lovable loser who couldn't con a kid out of a candy cane, thinks Radar is being played. But if love is blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid, and before Radar knows it, he's sucked into a vortex of double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses that'll either net him his precious California Roll or put him in a hole in the ground. As timeless as a perpetual motion machine, as timely as a Madoff arraignment, The California Roll brings you deep inside the world of con artistry, where every fact is fiction and the second liar never has a chance.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Vorhaus's amusing thriller about the misadventures of a con man in Los Angeles hums along for a while through gags and gaffes and witty dialogue, but never gels as a whole. Radar Hoverlander, a longtime grifter whose tool box of cons is deep and wide, is looking for the California Roll, the holy grail of cons that will set him for life. He thinks he's found it in the form of the Merlin Game, a complicated pyramid scheme. Then Radar runs into Allie Quinn, a sexy, slick fellow grifter who lures him into a con of her own. Vorhaus, author of The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even if You're Not and the Killer Poker series (Killer Poker Online, etc.), has put more effort into generating laughs than developing the plot. Like a lot of comic novels, this one suffers from extended expository passages in which the narrator falls in love with his own voice at the expense of the action. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Master of the snuke and its bafflegab and the scourge of every mook, con artist Radar Hoverlander wonders if he’s met his match in Allie Quinn. She’s dazzling and highly intelligent and seems to be setting him up for a con. She also leads a brittle, beautiful Australian cop and a bent FBI agent to him, and everyone but Radar has multiple agendas. Radar simply wants to avoid prison or being killed and to work toward the grand snuke, the California Roll, the last payday he’ll ever need. The California Roll is grand entertainment. Radar, Allie, the law-enforcement odd couple, and hapless grifter Vic Mirplo are all cleverly developed. Double and triple crosses abound in the careening plot, and Vorhaus, who writes primarily about poker, really seems to understand the bedrock mendacity of the grift. It’s in the blood, like peanut allergy, he writes. The writing is tight and wonderfully glib, and Vorhaus slyly, shrewdly hints that he’s snuking the reader. No caper-novel fan should miss this one. --Thomas Gaughan
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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More About the Author
John Vorhaus is now known to one and all as the man who brought Radar Hoverlander - con artist extraordinaire - to life in the "sunshine noir" mystery novel, THE CALIFORNIA ROLL, and its acclaimed sequel, THE ALBUQUERQUE TURKEY. His other novels include UNDER THE GUN and WORLD SERIES OF MURDER, the latter available exclusively through Kindle.
John is also well known as the author of THE COMIC TOOLBOX: HOW TO BE FUNNY EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT. This seminal book on writing comedy for television and film is now in its fifth printing, and continues to be a definitive source of information and inspiration for writers from Santa Monica to Scandinavia. Its companion volume, CREATIVITY RULES, is similarly a crucial book for writers at any stage of development.
Not content to rest on those laurels, Vorhaus is also the author of ten books on poker, including the KILLER POKER series and, with Annie Duke, the revolutionary DECIDE TO PLAY GREAT POKER. "As a poker player," confesses Vorhaus, "I'm a pretty good writer."
An international consultant in television and film script development, Vorhaus has worked for television networks, film schools, production companies and film funding bodies in 26 countries on four continents. He recently worked in Moscow, running the writing staff of the Russian version of Married... with Children, and in Tel Aviv, consulting on the Israeli version of The Golden Girls. He also travels regularly to Nicaragua, where he builds social-action comedy/dramas to provide positive role modeling for the poor, young and disenfranchised of that embattled country.
Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He has consulted to Walt Disney Feature Animation and taught at such institutions as Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension. He tweet @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com
John is also well known as the author of THE COMIC TOOLBOX: HOW TO BE FUNNY EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT. This seminal book on writing comedy for television and film is now in its fifth printing, and continues to be a definitive source of information and inspiration for writers from Santa Monica to Scandinavia. Its companion volume, CREATIVITY RULES, is similarly a crucial book for writers at any stage of development.
Not content to rest on those laurels, Vorhaus is also the author of ten books on poker, including the KILLER POKER series and, with Annie Duke, the revolutionary DECIDE TO PLAY GREAT POKER. "As a poker player," confesses Vorhaus, "I'm a pretty good writer."
An international consultant in television and film script development, Vorhaus has worked for television networks, film schools, production companies and film funding bodies in 26 countries on four continents. He recently worked in Moscow, running the writing staff of the Russian version of Married... with Children, and in Tel Aviv, consulting on the Israeli version of The Golden Girls. He also travels regularly to Nicaragua, where he builds social-action comedy/dramas to provide positive role modeling for the poor, young and disenfranchised of that embattled country.
Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He has consulted to Walt Disney Feature Animation and taught at such institutions as Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension. He tweet @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Get Conned,
By Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The California Roll: A Novel (Hardcover)
Radar Hoverlander is between jobs, and by that I mean he's between cons. Radar makes his living as a con artist. He's thinking he needs to get something in motion for the lucrative Christmas season, but he just can't get his heart into it.Into his life walks Allie Quinn. She is stunningly beautiful, and Radar is quickly under her spell. She also seems to know everything about Radar, a situation that makes him uncomfortable. Allie wants Radar to teach her grandfather one successful con. Radar smells a bit of a trap, but he's completely under Allie's spell. What is she really up to? Can Radar keep the upper hand, or will this master con artist get conned? In the interest of full disclosure, I got this book because the author is a friend of mine. But I am reviewing it because I enjoyed it. I don't normally go for the books where you are rooting for law breakers, but Radar is so much fun to be around, you can't help but root for him. The book is filled with interesting characters. I can't say I would want to meet any of them in real life, but on the page they were fun. I also enjoyed the story. The further you go, the more complicated it gets. Yet I never had a problem following who was doing what to whom. The biggest drawback was the writing. Radar spends a lot of time philosophizing about life as a con artist and the events around him. Some of that was interesting, but at times it felt like it was slowing down the story. And yes, the book does have more language than I am normally comfortable with, but that was only a minor issue. I'm glad I met Radar. He's an entertaining character caught up in a complex web. I know a sequel is in the works, and I'm looking forward to it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looks like some readers got conned,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The California Roll: A Novel (Paperback)
This is delightful from start to finish. Those who disliked the twists and turns at the end might be missing how the author is winking at the reader about the genre. The narrator details how all modern cons are variations on ancient ones, then pulls a series of fast ones that fans of other works on trickery and deception should recognize as part of the humor here. The language is witty throughout, but the big story is a joke in a tradition of grand jokes. I wouldn't mind losing beer money to this guy just to watch him work.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Laughs and Cons,
This review is from: The California Roll: A Novel (Hardcover)
The world of grifters and con games is remote to many of us who've rarely visited a casino or prowled seedy bars late at night. For a simple country boy like me, CALIFORNIA ROLL, a new novel by Jon Vorhaus, was a trip to another planet. The terminology is strange, the angles are deceiving, but the result is riotously funny.John's prose is the naked mind of the class clown. Pick any sentence, any paragraph in the entire book and you will find laugh lines in such abundance it isn't funny. But it is, the best kind of humor that bubbles naturally from engaging characters and a lively, silly plot. The old Sid Caesar kind of humor, full of the ridiculousness of daily human life, needing no topicality. A sharp, wordy wit. As a writer (WITCHGRASS: a pipe dream, THE ASPIRANT), I have always appreciated an entertaining sentence. John's thoughts bubble with a wry humor that keeps the pages turning. An astute observer of human foibles, he never misses a chance to go for the smile. Radar Hoverlander, a struggling grifter and his sidekick, Vic Mirplo are a classic comedy team to take on the demimonde of hustlerdom. Vorhaus takes us on a loony quest for the ultimate, titular con. It's an old dream, but this novel gives the reader a new spin and a guided tour only one who's been there can take you on. While visiting what seems like every imaginable stop on the grifter trail and learning about every type of con, Vorhaus also provides love interest and some creepy villains. It's a wild, worthwhile read.
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