The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (A Martin Zolotow Mystery) [Paperback]

Brian A. Hopkins (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Martin Zolotow Mystery | Publication Date: March 15, 2000

The LICKING VALLEY COON HUNTERS CLUB is a science-fiction, action-adventure, mystery-P.I.-suspense, humorous horror novel. Yep, it really is. You have to read it to believe it.

Those of you who haven't read any of Hopkins' Zolotow tales, you have quite a treat in store. Those of you who are familiar with this intrepid P.I. won't be disappointed -- this is perhaps the best one to date.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... fasten your seat-belts and join Martin Zolotow, memory-impaired P.I., for a visit to the Panhandle." -- Lynn Abbey, author of JERLAYNE, and creator of THIEVES' WORLD

"It has everything a P.I. book should... a hard-boiled but chivalrous P.I. [and] lovely ladies in distress ..." -- Lee Killough, author of BLOOD WALK and BLOOD GAMES

This is an in-your-face tale of today's weird science, bad behavior, and human cussedness that kicks butt." -- Ed Bryant, author and reviewer

About the Author

Brian A. Hopkins has published more than sixty stories in a variety of professional and semi-professional magazines and anthologies, including DRAGON MAGAZINE, ABORIGINAL SF, REALMS OF FANTASY, and the Stoker Award Winning anthology HORRORS! 365 SCARY STORIES. 1995 saw the publication of SOMETHING HAUNTS US ALL, a collection of Brian's short stories. In December of 1997, Brian's short novel, COLD AT HEART received high praise and was nominated to both the preliminary ballot for HWA's coveted Bram Stoker Award and SFWA's Nebula Award. Known for his innovative use of email and the internet to reach his readers, Brian released a 30 story anthology on a limited edition CD-ROM entitled FLESH WOUNDS. As Lone Wolf Publications, Brian is also producing a CD-ROM anthology, EXTREMES: FANTASY AND HORROR FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. Brian appreciates feedback and can be reached online at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Yard Dog Pr; First Edition edition (March 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893687082
• ISBN-13: 978-1893687080
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,359,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move Over McGee, Zolo's Aiming at Those Windmills Now!, September 25, 2001

By 

"jamea" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (A Martin Zolotow Mystery) (Paperback)

This first novel for Brian A. Hopkins features one Martin Zolotow, a rough hewn, ex-cop with a soft spot for well-turned ankles and a hard fist for nasty, bad guys. He's puppy-dog lovable and wild-animal rugged all in the same breath.

The story opens with Zolotow ("Zolo" to his friends and the ladies) painfully parting with his current lover, a young hooker he's taken off the streets, loved, and is putting on a plane that will send her back to an innocent life with her family. What he finds out immediately after her departure is that some rather creepy bad-guys are waiting to abscond him and whisk him away to... Oklahoma City!

Once in the Sooner state, Zolo's taken to a secluded stronghold somewhere in the OK panhandle, but not before he's recruited to rescue the daughter of a major crime figure. His incentive (besides just staying alive) is the young woman he had just put on the plane. He fails; she dies.

Put through his paces in this wild, action-packed adventure, Zolo battles both the members of the Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (they're originally from Ohio and not native Oklahoman bad blood) and his own muddled memory, an affliction that is at once his Achilles heel and a strange endearing quality. He's beaten with a ball bat, dragged through cow manure, chased, and shot at, but never totally thwarted because the poetry-spouting detective's acerbic wit and undaunting sense of what's right makes him too driven to stay down. Oh, and also some very lovely women come to his aid.

Mix in a snarling dog, a gaunt bad-guy in a wheelchair, some women who can handle both being sexy in bubble baths and in employing martial arts kicks--oh, and vampires!--and the action is non-stop!

Hopkins takes the reader on a wild romp with sure ease in his knowledge of weapons, chemistry, and women. Yet it's Zolo's revealing himself as kindhearted as Joe R. Lansdale's Hap Collins (and just as unlucky!) and as blindly chivalrous as John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee that make Zolo a whole new breed of hero, the kind who would attack a windmill on a seatless motorcycle in a tiger print bikini brief to save a lady! But that's another adventure all together.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent debut novel!, April 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (A Martin Zolotow Mystery) (Paperback)

Take a sarcastic private detective, add in rednecks from Oklahoma, genetically engineered vampires and enough action for three John Woo movies and you've got a killer debut novel. Hopkins delivers and he's got a bright future ahead of him. Get in on the ground floor and hang on for a wild and fun ride.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is so freaking good, I'm nearly at a loss for words!, April 21, 2000

By 

Peter Burke (Parkville, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club (A Martin Zolotow Mystery) (Paperback)

A private investigator novel at it's heart, this fabulous book crosses over into so many other genres, in such entertaining, insightful, creative, clever, and wickedly witty ways, I was having cerebral orgasms as I whipped through the pages, breathlessly awaiting the next fabulous development, which is rarely more than a page or two away. When this much fun is packed into so tight a package, there should be a warning label about the potential for the volatile mixture to explode in your brain, a situation which could lead to a permanent, one-way trip to a multi-faceted-consciousness that will never let you see the world in the tired old way in which you're accustomed to seeing it, again. If you don't want to risk this kind of mind-expanding literary experience, you're browsing in the wrong isle. But give it a try, anyway, no one has ever been sorry to take a path like this before, and you can believe me, because I never lie, and I'm always right. No brag, just fact.