The Mortal Nuts [Mass Market Paperback]

Pete Hautman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

Seventy-three-year-old ex-poker player Axel Speeter has one more winner-take-all hand to play with a pair of crooks who are after the $260,000 he keeps squirreled away in his room at the Motel 6. A New York Times Book Review Notable Book for 1996.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lusting for fame, fortune, heavy drugs, and good times, ex-con James Dean shows up at the Minnesota State Fair with his doped-up skinhead buddies and a gun. Alex Speeter saw the trouble coming, but didn't do anything to ward it off. He was too distracted by the Bueno Burrito on the menu at the fair's taco stand where he works, and the quarter of a million dollars in cash he stashed away in Folgers cans in his hotel room. But when the two collide more than sparks fly in this humorous crime tale. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard fans who have yet to discover Hautman's wryly comic, warmly human characters and madcap plots are in for a treat. Septuagenarian Axel Speeter, former roving gambler, now star taco entrepreneur at the annual Minnesota State Fair, lives at the Motel 6 despite having squirreled away $260,000 in cold cash inside coffee cans. Bucking the doubts of two pals from his swashbuckling gambling days-auto mechanic and junkyard proprietor Sam O'Gara (returning from Hautman's Drawing Dead and Short Money) and pint-sized Tommy Fabian, the fair's mini-donut king-the sentimental but streetwise and ever-libidinous Axel sends for Carmen, the sexy daughter of his mistress and business manager. Carmen, a med-tech student in Omaha, may be wild and possessed of a larcenous heart, but Axel knows that she sells tacos like no one else. Following her to the fair this year, however, is her skinhead lover and drug-dealer, Valium-hooked ex-con James Dean, who plans to steal Axel's coffee cans and head for Baja. When he can't find Axel's cache, Dean's interest turns to the midget donut king and his stash of cash. Mayhem ensues, inevitably. This is about as offbeat as a comic crime novel can get, and entertaining enough to win Hautman a whole passel of new admirers.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671003046
• ISBN-13: 978-0671003043
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,242,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Okay, here's some miscellaneous personal info. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California, or so I am told (I don't really remember). At age five I moved to St. Louis Park, Minnesota where I went to Cedar Manor Elementary School (also the alma mater of Al Franken and the Coen brothers, and no, they are not close personal friends of mine) and eventually graduated honor-free from St. Louis Park High School. This is so tedious. Why do you keep reading? For the next seven years I attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota. Contrary to recent news reports, I did not graduate from either institution. After college I worked various jobs for which I was ill-suited, including sign painter, graphic artist, marketing executive, pineapple slicer, etc. Eventually, having exhausted other options, I decided to write. My first novel, Drawing Dead, was published in 1993. Today, I live with mystery writer and poet Mary Logue in Golden Valley, Minnesota and Stockholm, Wisconsin. We have two small dogs (are you still reading?) named Rene and Jacques. There you have it. Fifty-plus years compressed into a few short paragraphs. Feel free to copy and paste for your book report, but don't tell anybody I suggested it. Need to know more? Check out the FAQs page on my website at http://www.petehautman.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minnesota State Fair high jinks, February 15, 2002

By 

Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: MORTAL NUTS: A NOVEL (Hardcover)

Senior citizens hold sway in this funny, funny novel. Seventy-three-year-old Axel Speeter runs a taco concession stand at the Minnesota State Fair. Tommy Fabian, who stands 62"in cowboy boots and stetson hat, has a license to print money at Tiny Tot Donuts. Axel's former poker-playing buddy and expert mechanic Sam O'Gara also makes an appearance (He's Joe Crow's dad. Joe is Pete Hautman's reluctant detective in most of his books).
The set-up is this: Axel doesn't trust banks; he's got $260,000 stashed in coffee cans at the Motel 6 where he lives. Sam has hired his girlfriend Sophie Roman's daughter Carmen to work at his confession stand. She detests the place; she's also dating a skinhead named James Dean, who wants to relieve Axel of his money, but not before he tries to mug Tommy Fabian. If you've ever watched midget wrestling you have a pretty good idea of what a one-sided proposition that was. Tommy refers to James Dean as that "bald monkey".
The Minnesota State Fair is definitely the star vehicle here. Hautman has O'Gara pinch hit for Tommy at one point doing which time he says, "Gotta get myself a joint like this, sell deep-fried lutefisk on a stick or some goddamn thing." Sam also owns a pair of vicious dogs named Chester and Festus who're almost as funny as Sam.
Some critics compare Pete Hautman to Carl Hiaasen. I'll admit I've only read one of Hiaasen's books and I may be prejudiced because of all the Minnesota references, but I'd say Hautman is Charlie Chaplin to Hiaasen's Pinky Lee.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books, November 7, 2004

By 

Bruce Neilson "bbb94" (Salt Lake City, Ut United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Mortal Nuts (G K Hall Large Print Book Series) (Hardcover)

This is the first book I read by this author, and it is great!
I have since read most of his other works and they are also very good. Rag Man, Ring Game, Drawing Dead, Short Money, Doohickey are all worth reading, but The Mortal Nuts, for me, is the best.
He has written some books more for children that I have not been interested in.
This is just a great read!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars run out of Hiaasens?, August 30, 2004

By 

Sean C. Scott "bibliomane" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mortal Nuts (Mass Market Paperback)

In the carnival midway of literature, you'll find Pete Hautman somewhere between Raymond Chandler and Raymond Queneau, wandering from attraction to attraction in a half-serious scavenger hunt for zany characters and offbeat plot twists.

Set at the Minnesota State Fair, The Mortal Nuts features a calculatedly improbable dramatis personae: Axel Speeter, a surly septuagenarian with a cash fortune stuffed into coffee cans; his buddy, donut mogul Tommy Fabian; Sophie Roman, Axel's stand manager and sometime bedfellow; Carmen, her Valium-popping daughter; Carmen's skinhead beau, an ex-con by name of James Dean; and a motley montage of characters that only a fair could bring together.

Treating these characters like human balloon-animals, Hautman twists them into a believably unbelievable caper plot that's fluffily engaging - and shamelessly unprofound - from beginning to end.

The Mortal Nuts is like a day at the fair, eating junk food and people-watching: it's by turns lighthearted and sordid, violent and naive, cheesy and sincere, frivolous and satisfying. No meaning-of-life headaches here - just a colorful, entertaining diversion.