The RING GAME [Hardcover]

Pete Hautman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 1997

In his funniest, most outrageous book yet, the acclaimed author of Mortal Nuts, Short Money, and Drawing Dead plunges readers into a wild mix of larceny, martial arts, weird religion, bodybuilding, unrequited love--and murder to boot! When the intrepid Joe Crow is hired to investigate a shady suitor, he finds a scheme that results in one busted wedding, two kidnappings, a good deal of property damage, and all the hilarity fans have come to expect from a Pete Hautman caper.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Axel Speeter, Pete Hautman's hilarious creation, returns for another delirious round of mayhem when his girlfriend's daughter Carmen becomes engaged to a con man named Hyatt Hilton. Before long, Axel has convinced his pal Joe Crow to investigate Hilton, which, in turn, embroils everyone in a misfired plot to scam some bogus preachers. Soon gamblers, bodybuilders, religious charlatans, and elderly fishermen are popping out of the midwestern landscape with loony abandon. All the craziness makes the mystery a little hard to follow, but it's all so endearing that you probably won't mind.

From Library Journal

The Amaranthine Church of the One, which promises immortality if one believes enough, is flourishing. Hyatt Hilton, a former member of the church, is planning to expose the Amaranthines as charlatans. To do this, he concocts a wedding, a kidnapping of the bride, and a bid to put the event on the news. Hautman's (The Mortal Nuts, LJ 5/1/96) plot is so convoluted that it is almost impossible to follow. The characters are not amusing or even engaging, his motivation remains obscure, and the narrative moves so slowly it will lose most readers. Not recommended.?Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684832429
• ISBN-13: 978-0684832425
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,749,588 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

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and Perfect!, December 3, 1999

By 

Janet L. Bond (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ring Game (Mass Market Paperback)

Funniest book I've read since Hiaasen's "Native Tongues", and that's saying a lot! Bizarre, but on target, and everything happens and works out with satisfaction more amazing than your best meal! Loved every minute of it! Wanted to find out what happened, but didn't want to go to fast, since the book would be "used up" too soon. I'm sure you know what I mean!

Again, if your sense of humor doesn't include Hiaasen, and if you don't like Elmore Leonard, for example, you won't like this book. But if you do, you're going to cry when you finish, as it will again be a long time until we find another book like this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best Joe Crow novel, December 29, 2003

By 

Chris Callahan (Asheville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ring Game (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my third Joe Crow novel by Pete Hautman. I thought "Short Money" and "Drawing Dead" were hilarious and I would give them both five stars.

This one borders on the cloyingly stupid, while "Drawing Dead" and "Short Money" are over the top in "funny stupid". There is a difference (if you know what I mean <G>).

In other words there are times when this crazed plot simply isn't funny. The plot is basically a plan of revenge by an idiot former coke dealer and now counterfeit Evian distributor to destroy a silly Aramanthine religious cult whose leaders are playing a con on innocent believers/contributors that you can live forever. This revenge plan, concocted by Hiatt Hilton, is because he was "kicked out" of the cult he helped start in a health food store. Therefore he dreams up a fake wedding in which he and his "bride not to really be" are fake kidnapped before the wedding in an effort to pin the blame on these crazed cultists. As an aside, Hilton presumably plans to make some money by selling his story of the kidnapping/foiled wedding to news media.

Joe Crow is drawn into this simply because he has nothing else to do while is girlfriend is spending time in Paris, and becuase Sam O'Gara's friend Axel wants him to investigate his future pseudo son in law's background because Joe was somehow involved in the pseudo son in law and daughter in law meeting.

Joe does nothing to save the day in this plot other than make a lucky cell phone call, but he manages to nearly get himself killed by two muggings in the process.

OK....so the plot perhaps sounds terrible. (It really is.) But Hautman has a way with characters and words that will still amuse you, so I still had fun with this nutty book. But I'd certainly not recommend this book as your first taste of either Joe Crow or Pete Hautman. Try "Short Money" or "Drawing Dead" first.

3.0 out of 5 stars Neither poker nor mystery but caper-farce, June 24, 2011

By 

Mr. Ed in Toronto (Toronto, Ont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ring Game (Paperback)

Having enjoyed Hautman's 2005 poker mystery, The Prop, I was looking forward to this. But it turned out to have neither poker (ok, the protagonist Joe Crow does talk about having played in a few places) nor mystery. Unlike some reviewers, I didn't find the overloaded plot confusing: it's in the nature of farce, which is what this is. The back-cover blurb of my edition compares the book to fiction by Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen but really this is a comic caper novel that's more in the Donald Eastlake tradition. Hautman's a skilled wordsmith but this is not his best work.