Foreign Exchange [Mass Market Paperback]

Larry Beinhart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 1992

"Acerbic . . . Original . . . Beinhart writes with considerable panache." The Philadelphia Inquirer
A Tony Cassella Mystery by the author of "You Get What You Pay For."
Tony Cassella is tired of being a private eye. He has a new baby. Soon he may even have a wife. And he's also in trouble with the IRS. So he's traded his trench coat for a quiet but profitable laundromat in the Austrian Alps.
But it's not so easy to retire. When the CIA comes calling, they want more than their shirts done. They want him to find a missing computer disc lost in an avalanche that killed a Japanese playboy and an American girl. A Japanese conglomerate soon appears on the scene with questions of their own. And the girl's mother is not far behind. Everybody wants Tony's help. Everybody, that is, except a few out-of-work East German spies. They want him dead . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beinhart adds a new dimension to wisecracking Brooklyn PI Tony Casella in this sparkling international escapade, a BOMC selection in cloth.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Edgar-winner Beinhart's third suspenser about p.i. Cassella of Brooklyn and just as superbly witty as You Get What You Pay For (1988) and No One Rides For Free (1985). Tony Cassella has spent the past six years on the lam from the IRS and running the only coin-operated laundromat in a high-toned Austrian ski resort. It's a phony charge, but even so he owes the IRS a quarter million because of compound interest. Now the CIA threatens to expose Tony's false identity papers to the Austrians--he's hiding behind a passport that says he's an Irish priest, and he does wear a dickey and a priestly collar although his French girlfriend Marie is pregnant. The novel is sketched on money and the European exchange rates, although the McGuffin is a lost computer disc that holds the code for a new American fighter jet that the Germans and Japanese want as desperately as the CIA does. If Tony can recover the disc, the CIA will clear him with the IRS--or will it? Is garrulous old rogue Harry Lime (a Sidney Greenstreet type Tony meets in Vienna) really with the CIA? Is likable, Berkeley-educated ``Mike'' Hayakawa really with Musashi Aerospace of Japan? Tony's search takes him through a half dozen East bloc countries with Marie, their baby daughter, his mother, and Marie's lawgiving French mother all packed into his small car. The novel's great humor lies in Beinhart's golden ear for all variety of American, European, Japanese, and Australian dialects, accents that he captures with headspinning accuracy. Typical thumbnail of a Czech agent: ``He said everything with great intensity and a lot of hair. He had the sort of beard that collects crumbs and drama.'' Knockout fun, top-drawer plotting. This'll burn away the night. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Fawcett (July 20, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345366654
• ISBN-13: 978-0345366658
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,858,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Larry, where art thou?, April 14, 2003

By 

T Galazka (no longer NYC, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foreign Exchange (Mass Market Paperback)

With this one I've finally gotten my grubby paws on the complete (published in book format and more or less fictional) works of Larry Beinhart. And I loved it so much (as usual) that now I'm heartbroken. There was no new book from Beinhart since mid-90s, and I miss them sorely. Re-reading is fun, in this case enormous fun, but I WANT MORE!
...OK, ad rem. Great book. Mother-in-law scenes galore, plus spooks, musclemen, Czech mafiosi and Japanese businessmen with all the manners of hungry sharks. And Tony Casella, who's so much one of a kind that you'd wish you were like him, even with the stuff he has to face in his life.
Buy it. Then go buy Beinhart's other novels. And weep like me, after you're done laughing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This guy is a GREAT writer, September 23, 1999

By 

Queenoid (Greenwood Village, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foreign Exchange (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book several years ago, and it is a crime in itself that the book is out of print. Tony Cassella is an engaging character, the plot is gripping AND it has a nifty "twist" such as you also find in American Hero. I certainly wish we were going to get more of this clever and believable detective, but I do understand that Mr. Beinhart has a living to make.