A Long Walk Up the Water Slide (Neal Carey Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Don Winslow (Author)

Book Description

Series: Neal Carey Mysteries | Publication Date: July 15, 1998

Neal Carey has to keep the mob, the FBI, and a major television personality from killing his newest client-- but he's tempted to do the job himself.

Sometime student and ever-reluctant detective Neal Carey would rather be finishing a dull doctoral thesis than staring down the nose of a loaded gun-- but his new assignment doesn't sound dangerous. All he's got to do is pull off the ultimate makeover: turn Polly Paget-- a gum-chewing, foul-mouthed, big-haried broad-- into a perfect lady in time to testify in a rape case against Jack Landis, head of the Family Cable Network and America's most beloved family man. But Polly isn't cooperating, and everyone-- including a former FBI agent, and an obsessive-compulsive hitman, the Mafia, a porn prince, and a slew of tabloid reporters-- is on her trail turning Neal's "simple" assignment into a deadly game of duck-duck-goose.

In a hellish and hilarious escapade that takes him from the deserts of Nevada to the bright lights of Las Vegas, and finally to a hair-raising climax in a shoddily built amusment park, Neal tries to escape the mob's big guns while taking a slippery walk up the world's biggest water slide.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Elmore Leonard meets Professor Higgins in Winslow's (Way Down on the High Lonely) latest high-spirited Neal Carey caper. Neal agrees to hide big-haired Brooklyn gal Polly Paget from the media and other predators after she publicly accuses her former boss and lover, family-TV personality Jack Landis, of rape. Once again in the hire of the secret Friends of the Family organization, Neal and his lady love, Karen Hawley, agree to smooth some of Polly's rough edges before she reenters the public eye. Landis, his prim co-star/wife Candy and their investors (some of whom are less than legitimate), who are poised to expand the Landis communications empire into a family theme park, are leery of ugly publicity. The missing woman is hunted by assorted parties: a magazine publisher out for a high-profile centerfold sends a drunken investigator after her; the Landises hire a former government agent to find her; and someone else has called upon the services of a coolly competent hired gun. After assorted cast members converge at the Carey home in Austin, Tex., Neal, Karen, Polly and an unexpected new friend run for cover. Winslow's dialogue zips along as smartly as the action. If Polly becomes less interesting as her diction improves, the rewards of this tale, whose lowlife characters rival the cast of Guys and Dolls, remain undiminished.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A change of pace for Neal Carey, who's been petulantly hunting down people for the Friends of the Family (Way Down on the High Lonely, 1993, etc.). This time, Joe Graham and the other Friends want him to keep much-hunted Polly Paget under wraps in the Nevada desert while he cleans up her grammar, her diction, and her act before she goes on network TV to denounce her boss, Jackson Landis, founder and majority owner of the Family Cable Network, as a rapist. The real change, though, is in the tone of this caper. Neal's intellectually elitist mysticism wouldn't cut it as Polly's pursued by (1) a former FBI agent working for Jackson Landis and Candy, his wife and partner in a new theme park to be called (of course) Candyland; (2) a porn prince eager to sign Polly to a centerfold contract; (3) an unsavory developer who whitewashes his silent partnership in Candyland by going to confession every day; and (4) a hit man whose obsessive professionalism can't hide the fact that he keeps missing the target. So Winslow wisely shuffles Neal offstage for long, foolishly amusing stretches while Candy tracks down Polly and bonds with her; the senior Friends, learning that the New Orleans mob is moving in on Jack's empire, tiptoe away from backing Polly; and all parties concerned scramble to come out on top in a final tarantella worthy of Donald E. Westlake. Not as distinctive as Neal's earlier adventures, but the broadest, loosest, funniest of them all. It's great to see Neal taking a break from his M.A. thesis on that stinker Smollett without getting all hung up for a change. -- Copyright ©1994, 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: 277 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312966172
• ISBN-13: 978-0312966171
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,221,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don Winslow (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen crime and mystery novels as well as short stories and film screenplays. A Cool Breeze on the Underground, Winslow's debut and the first novel in his popular Neal Carey series, was nominated for an Edgar Award. Before becoming a fulltime writer, Winslow worked as a private detective in New York and California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a long walk up the water slide, July 3, 2004

By 

"kevinrc6" (Riverhead, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Long Walk Up the Water Slide (Neal Carey Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

not as good as some of the other books by Don Winslow yet still interesting and appeline great fun breezy read. i recomend checking out some of the other books such as While Drowning in the desert (Neal Carey Mystery)

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud funny, November 2, 2009

By 

L. Lutgens (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Long Walk Up the Water Slide (Neal Carey Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

I didn't want to quit reading because it made me laugh out loud, a lot and I had to find out what happened. The plots, counter plots, and sub-plots wove a spider web across the U.S. from New York to the Nevada boondocks to San Antonio's River Walk to New Orleans and back to Las Vegas. The only thing I was sure of from the beginning was the Mob's most fearsome hitman had met his match in Polly, Candy, and Karen and was doomed to go down hard.