Customer Reviews

Six Hours Past Thursday

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Jack Payne understands the dollar, has professional experience in dealing with it, in understanding the mythology of it, has observed the volcanic eruption of obsession with it. This kind of insider's knowledge, when coupled with the ability to write terse imagery and pull exaggerated characters out of a seemingly endless barrage of imagination, places Payne in a fully loaded position to deliver a gripping and harshly brutal novel out of that peculiar period of time from 1966 to 1968 that changed our world indelibly.

SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY pummels us along the journey of the transformation of a character - Steve Draves - whose double life (the 1966 standard of married man with kids and wife enjoying a successful climb up the ladder of success versus the deceptive lothario who would cheat anyone at anything if he ended up on top) leads him to the Don Juanian end. This story makes big time crime understandable, adultery seem mild, greed and lust seem almost passé, and the insatiable desires of a man obsessed with his own delusions feel like someone we know.

Payne writes very well. His use of blending sentence fragments and extended flow of thought adds to the pounding rhythm of a story that the fact that we don't like the main character an incidental finding in the manner in which this story seduces and unfolds at breakneck speed.

Many of his secondary characters are well fleshed out and identifiable as they intersect in Draves self-forged path toward destruction. But the more important aspect of what Payne has done in writing this novel is make us all take a closer look at what was happening in our lives, and what has happened TO our lives, since that fission that occurred between 1966 and 1968. And that is an aspect of any book, let alone a first novel, that signals the arrival of a writer of distinction. One hopes that next time around the main character, here the 'Don Juan' of the bedroom and the moneybags, will be more a character about whom we can feel some empathy. But then that may be another of Payne's intended points..... Grady Harp, January 2005

There's something about a conman. From the charming but conniving Starbuck in N. Richard Nash's classic play `The Rainmaker,' to Milo Minderbinder, the larcenous Army Mess Officer in Joseph Heller's `Catch 22,' there's just something about a smooth-talking swindler.

Jack Payne's new novel, Six Hours Past Thursday, brings a new face to the pantheon of tricksters. Move over Henry Gondorff, here comes Steve Draves. Steve has it all: a beautiful wife, wonderful children, a fat bank account, and the sort of best friend that he can trust with his life. What more could a man want? In Steve's case - everything. More money, more booze, and every attractive woman who crosses his path. Steve is the master of the tricky deal, and a maestro of the doublecross. It's amazing to watch him work, as he skims, squeezes and strong arms his way to a fortune, all without ever quite breaking the law. Everything is going great until the mob gets involved...

Jack Payne brings a lifetime of exceptional business acumen to this novel, and his insider knowledge comes through in the details of every shady deal. His writing is smooth, engaging, and deceptively powerful. But you won't recognize the true nature of Jack Payne's skill until you realize that you love Steve Draves, even as you're compiling your list of reasons to despise him.

Jeff Edwards, author of "Torpedo: A Surface Warfare Thriller"

"Six Hours Past Thursday," by Jack Payne, USA, Impact Books J+J, 2004 - ISBN 1-59113-503-8 - pbk, 304 pp., is an intense and troubling revelation of an imperious, conniving, flauting but outwardly successful business broker, Steve Draves, who wants it all and who risks being out on a limb and at risk of cutting too many of the wrong branches. Unbeknownst to his wife Betty, he secretly amasses a small fortune he boastfully reveals to his best but inept straggler friend Mark.

Though "happily" married with children, Steve has one too many addictions: he (1) is a fantasizing philanderer with a proclivity for Junoesque bosomy women he meets in bars or the workplace, (2) becomes regularly immersed in Martinis, (3) has inventive machiavellian hustler skills and (4) is overly narcissistic.

As is true with most addicts and addictions, "just one or two more and it's quits," Steve manages to jump most of the hurdles and run most of the bases -- but he is stopped short at home plate. And, as in Nature, there can be that eerie calm before the storms.

Payne's novel is itself addicting. It provides an interesting itinerary of places, a litany of characters and revealing of some tragic consequences of the imperfections of the human condition. Steve is somebody you would like to hate but you also almost come to love this bastard whose Ego got laid by his Id. The story line is not one to be easily forgotten. The author is very well-published but this is his 1st novel which comes off well -- I found but 4 minor mispellings. The price is right. We don't learn the meaning of the title until the last chapter...do read this book!

A fictional account of a scummy, womanizing con-man that explains in boastful detail how crooks can legally manipulate the system to defraud their victims in business and investments. The author, Jack Payne, has seen it all in the real world, then managed to transpose a myriad of devious machinations into an entertaining tale of deception and greed. A must-read for anyone thinking about buying a business or real estate opportunity.

The protagonist, Steve Draves, is as good at bending rules as a magician is at twisting balloon animals. Behind his family-man facade lurks a narcissist bereft of any morals. Payne not only manages to describe the sexist womanizer's exploits without needless vulgarity, he actually has you worrying about someone you'd want to murder if you ever did business with them.

While it's hard to imagine this psychopathic liar could have the ability to feel the emotion of love, his occasional acts of consideration - for even a select few - leaves you wondering if redemption is a possibility.

Though it appears easy for Draves to read and manipulate both the emotions and thought processes of someone during a short encounter, it proves to be an impossible task with those he interacts with on a daily basis.

In a dramatic twist, which should enlighten us all to the vagaries of ego and empathy, Jack Payne leaves us with an enduring tale of the human condition.

Payne really delivers an action-packed look into the life of a business broker who lives just above the law -- and at times, a bit below. As long as Steve Draves doesn't get caught, anything goes. The reader really gets into Draves' head through Payne's vivid descriptions on his thoughts and actions.

Draves leads more than just a double life. A married man who would, at least, like to be cheating on his wife with a variety of women who tantalize and taunt Steve, at least from his perspective. A successful broker, Steve's family lives in a $12,000 house which is a bit modest for a millionaire, even in the 1960s. He plays the part of a struggling young father who keeps his wife on a $150 a week budget. He allows other businessmen to give him "advice" on career moves, while he watches his savings soar in his business deals. Even at his office, his life is for show. A tape recording of typewriter sounds constantly plays to make clients think there are 20-odd staff members working, when there is really only himself and his secretary.

Things become dicey when he begins telling his friend about his million-dollar deal with a mob boss who doesn't appreciate all of Draves' wheeling and dealing. Once the mobster gets wind of a mistake Steve's secretary made, he's on the run!

Despite Steve's character being such a sexist, self-proclaimed Don Juan, I found myself secretly pulling for Steve, hoping he straightened out his life. The shock ending is much in line with the reality of Steve's actions and business dealings.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a great ride. I found humor as well as poignancy on every page. I look forward to more fiction from Jack Payne!

This novel well mirrored the way things were back then. The bars filled at four, what room was left because some were still there from lunch. This was business in those days and how it was conducted. This story line followed many people I had known in that time. They were all trying to make the big "Score" but carried themselves as if they had already attained it. The climax of the plot was quite exciting and shattering. All in all it was a very good novel. I will remember it for a long time

1966 was the end of The Age of Innocence, according to author Jack Payne. He's right, of course. To be sure there were lots of scams before then, but this book could be considered a catalog of the `scam-of-the-week'. Perhaps tycoon types would find it fun reading all these behind-the-scene descriptions of get-rich-quick schemes, but after a while, truly, it gets to be a bit heavy going.

Still, Mr. Payne is one heck of a story-teller, and his considerable writing skills lure you ever-onward toward the final reckoning. Younger readers may have a hard time believing some of this, but us older fogies will know he's absolutely nailed the era and the various mind-sets that existed then.

Steve Draves, mid-30s, an entrepreneurial type, is married to the gorgeous Betty, and has almost one-year old twin sons. His business-he buys and sells things, usually real estate-seems to be doing okay, if not spectacularly. What more could he want? Well, to begin with, he wants Tina and Sandy and Deby. And two million dollars in his private account.

He is scrupulous when it comes to staying legal, most of the time. The one time things get flubbed proves to be his nemesis. The client is a mobster with a daughter, and she is determined to have Steve for herself, regardless of the maneuvering she must do to make this happen.

I wouldn't give away the ending even if I could, because I don't want to be a spoiler. The book is not easily classifiable, to be sure; it's a suspenseful thriller with a touch of mystery. Kudos also to Mr. Payne for being able to tell such a compulsive, male-oriented story without resorting to street language.

Here's my recommendation to any reader-try SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY-I'm sure you'll enjoy it. And then, like me, you'll be waiting, rather impatiently, for the author's next book.

SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is a morality tale for the new millennium if anyone, who's wheelin' an' dealin' and acquiring Stuff, has the time and inclination to read it.

Steve Draves is a Chicago business broker whose self-proclaimed philosophy is:

"... if you play your cards right, you get ... exposure to a wide variety of situations where you can gouge, fleece, make side deals, and work out kick-back arrangements."

And the object, as regurgitated by Steve's friend/student, Mark, is to:

"... see how close you can crowd up to the edge of the law without breaking it. As long as you keep your business within that framework - keep your nose technically clean, if not morally - you can make a fortune, perfectly legally and safely."

In his professional and personal life, Draves isn't so much immoral as amoral. He won't break the law, but will utilize every legal scam in his repertoire to increase his financial worth, now approaching $2 million, which, in Steve's world of 1966, is a fair piece of change. And while Steve deeply loves his wife, Betty, he'll cheat on her any chance he gets. (Blonde Betty, built like a brick outhouse and dumb as a post, is selflessly dedicated to her husband. It's enough to make a radical feminist want to kill.)

From past experience, Draves believes his life-changing good luck appears precisely at the end of 5-year cycles. The next is imminent. True, he hasn't had recent success getting to first base with Tina, Sandy, or his secretary, Deby. But, business has been good, though there is that risky association with the hard-nosed mobster, Johnny Patiense. But certainly, after a, um, no-nonsense conference with Johnny's security chief and quality assurance manager, Tony and Frank respectively, Steve's life takes a new direction. Redemption, perhaps.

As a fictional framework within which author Jack Payne educates the reader, SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is first rate. However, whether the narrative should serve as a how-to-do or how-to-avoid primer of shady business practices, Payne leaves to his audience. Since justice of a sort is served by the book's conclusion, I gather that Payne's preference is that it be the latter.

I'd award the book five stars for conceptual cleverness, but only three for plot credibility and the ability of its "hero" to engage the sympathy of the reader. Indeed, Drave is such an oil slick that I hardly cared what became of him in what was, for me, an overly contrived finale. The readers' sympathies will likely remain with the secondary characters that Steve uses and manipulates, especially the women in his life. This seems to violate what I learned in high school English Lit, i.e., that a necessary component of fiction is a major protagonist for whom one can cheer. But, never mind, SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is a worthwhile read for that next flight out of town to close the Big Deal.

Steve Draves is a man obsessed with money and women, even though he loves his wife. He's not even sure why he wants the other women, just knows that he does. Never satisfied with what he has, Steve works all the angles when he makes a real estate sale for someone. Unfortunately, he never knows when to quit. Steve tells his envious friend, Mark Brightly, about a deal he is working on, a deal that will enable him to retire in style, the deal of a lifetime, but it is with a mobster Johnny Patiense, a man who does not forgive mistakes, especially where money is concerned. Too late, Steve learns he is in over his head and the price he'll pay is beyond gold. This is a tale of how not to make a deal, of how to outsmart yourself and proof that the grass on the other side of the fence isn't dollar green. Any thriller fan could find this an enjoyable read, a walk on the dark side where danger lurks in any shadow. Recommended as a fun read.

"Six Hours Past Thursday" is excellent reading. It is a story about a man on the brink of having it all, having realized his successes by somewhat scurrilous methods, and literally losing it all in a dramatic twist of the plot.

Through insider trading, intricate real estate deals and a variety of other "right on the edge of legal" ways, Draves, the key character, amasses a fortune during the 60s as a surprise and boon to his wife and twin sons.

However, having utilized every legal means of bilking his clients, taking advantage of his acquaintances, lording his achievements over his friend, womanizing and being an all-around amoral man, he is dealt his just desserts as the curtain falls.