Crazy Love: A Bubba Mabry P.I. Mystery (Bubba Mabry Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Steve Brewer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bubba Mabry Mysteries | Publication Date: February 1, 2001

How crazy with jealousy can one man be?

Albuquerque private eye Bubba Mabry learns that jealousy can extend beyond the grave when he’s hired by a mild-mannered millionaire named Melvin Haywood. Haywood’s wife died six moths earlier, revealing on her deathbed that she had been unfaithful. Haywood’s tried to put it behind him, but he can’t stop wondering: Who’s been sleeping in my bed?

Interviewing Haywood’s neighbors, Bubba bumbles his way into the confines of The Manor, an exclusive community populated by liars and gossips and adulterers¾and at least one murderer.

Bubba’s investigation takes him through sports medicine clinics and luxury car dealerships and ritzy parties and country-and-western saloons. And it makes him questions much of what he believes about love and marriage, loyalty and loss.

In this, his sixth outing, soft-boiled private eye Bubba Mabry gets to see how the other half lives. And how they die.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Steve Brewer exhibits his usual comic flair in Crazy Love: The Sixth Bubba Mabry Mystery. Hired by a jealous millionaire to look into his late wife's sordid past, Mabry finds infidelity and murder in an exclusive walled community called The Manor. St. Martin's Press published Brewer's previous five books in the series.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Melvin Howard, an eccentric millionaire, wants to find his recently deceased wife's lover and hires Albuquerque PI Bubba Mabry for the job. Bubba tracks the lover, a lecherous doctor, only to find him murdered, leaving Bubba's client as the prime suspect and Bubba as a possible accessory--or the next victim. This sixth Bubba Mabry mystery is nicely paced and poses a challenging puzzle. Brewer's New Mexico is very different from the version in travel brochures, or even from the landscape-drenched Tony Hillerman novels. This is the bleak, seedy, slightly ramshackle urban side of the Southwest, and Brewer gets it just right. The relationship between the slightly bumbling Bubba, full of middle-age worries, and his more confident wife, an investigative reporter, is also a plus. Brewer isn't as stylish a writer as many other New Mexico crime novelists (Hillerman, Doss, McGarrity), but his blue-collar perspective adds valuable texture to the landscape. John Rowen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Intrigue Press (February 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890768316
• ISBN-13: 978-1890768317
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,846,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

STEVE BREWER is the author of more than 20 books about crooks, including the recent crime novels LOST VEGAS, THE BIG WINK and CALABAMA.

His first novel, LONELY STREET, was made into a Hollywood comedy starring Robert Patrick, Jay Mohr and Joe Mantegna. BOOST currently is under film/TV option.

Brewer's short fiction appeared in the anthologies DAMN NEAR DEAD, THE LAST NOEL, CRIMES BY MOONLIGHT and WEST COAST CRIME WAVE, and he's published articles in Mystery Scene, Crimespree and Mystery Readers' Journal.

A former journalist and syndicated humor columnist, Brewer now works as a writing coach, book doctor and University of New Mexico lecturer. A frequent speaker at mystery conventions, he was toastmaster at Left Coast Crime in 2011.

Married and the father of two adult sons, Brewer lives in Albuquerque, NM.

More at www.stevebrewer.blogspot.com. Write him at [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bubba Strikes Again, July 17, 2001

By 

New Mexico Fan (Sandia Park, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Love: A Bubba Mabry P.I. Mystery (Bubba Mabry Mysteries) (Hardcover)

It is such a pleasure to read a mystery where the protagonist isn't a super hero. In fact, Bubba Mabry is probably the antithesis of a super hero. Steve Brewer's characters and scenes get better and better with each story. There were occasions when I stopped and went back just to read his description of a particular character, because that description was so enjoyable. Read his description of Melvin Haywood on page 2 and you'll get the picture. Brewer's characteristic humour presents itself once again in Crazy Love. Bubba is his usual funny self, and Bubba's father, Dub, is the perfect foil to bring out the worst in his son. The scenes with Bubba and Dub are priceless. I recommend any of Brewer's books. I've read them all and it is a pleasure to see his grasp of his craft improve with each novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Enjoyed This Book, September 24, 2001

By 

Margarita Sanchez (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Love: A Bubba Mabry P.I. Mystery (Bubba Mabry Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book. I am a huge fan of mysteries, especially mysteries like this one. Steve Brewer is a fine story teller, and he captures the multicultural aspects of the American southwest perfectly. Crazy Love is an excellent book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bubba being Bubba makes for a wonderful read, March 26, 2001

By 

Alan L. (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Love: A Bubba Mabry P.I. Mystery (Bubba Mabry Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Do you like your mystery detectives to be human? Are you tired of the too tough to care detective? Bored with the detective that can tell a persons past by the lisp of their s and the limp of their leg? If so, then let me introduce you to Bubba Mabry. Bubba is the star of the novel, Crazy Love, the sixth book in a series of excellent mystery novels by Steve Brewer. Born and raised in Mississippi, transplanted to Albuquerque by the Air Force, Bubba is a private investigator working hard and usually scraping bottom. He is not the tough as nails, super confident type of PI that spits blood casually at the feet of thugs beating him, but instead takes his licks and deals with them like a real person: He bleeds, bruises, and takes aspirin to help with the swelling.

In "Crazy Love", Bubba gets into one of his typical situations. He isn't getting much work, and rather than allowing his wife to support him, he takes on an odd case, the client that wants to find out with whom his dead wife had an affair. Things seem to move toward a quick conclusion of the case when suddenly the suspected lothario is dead, Bubba's client is the key suspect, Bubba is viewed as a potential accomplice, and the client disappears. Ever faithful to his client, Bubba tries to find out who the real murderer is. Getting in his way is a happy widow, a bruising hulk, another case with a demanding client, and Bubba having to deal with his jealousy of his wife working long nights with a handsome new coworker and his parents dropping by from out of town. He is sucked further into the quagmire finding himself in jail for attempted murder, being fired from a case, and his wife angry at him for his jealous accusations. How does he resolve it all? As only Bubba can.

If you enjoy a good twisted plot mystery, a likeable detective, and hours of good reading, pick up Crazy Love by Steve Brewer. While you're at it, pick up any of the other titles by Brewer, they are all very enjoyable.

Think Elvis is dead? Then perhaps you should start with Lonely Street, the first Bubba Mabry mystery.