Shoot the Moon (Shoot Moon) [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph T. Klempner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Shoot Moon | Publication Date: October 15, 1998

In the hilarious, tradition of Elmore Leonard, former narcotics agent Joseph brings brilliantly to life the bungling misadventures of an upstanding citizen turned unwitting drug bitingly funny caper rich with action, irony, and originality.

All his life he has stayed in the comfort zone: never taking any chances, never breaking any rules. Now, Michael Goodman, bookkeeper, father, and widower, is about to change his ways. It starts in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot, when Michael changes a flat tire on his pink rental car. Suddenly, the mild-mannered accountant, desperately trying to find a job and pay his daughter's mounting medical bills, is in possession of a load of pure, undiluted heroin. With a white-hot bag of powder and scarcely a clue, Michael leads the cops, the DEA, and one very sexy woman on a wild-goose chase through the deadly world of New York City drug dealing. It's a wild ride that might make Michael rich and might even land him in love-as long as it doesn't kill him...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's so much death and gloom in the thriller world these days that a book daring to offer a relatively happy ending deserves special notice. It's not that nobody dies in former Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent Joseph T. Klempner's antic, upbeat new thriller--it's just that they're almost all bad guys. Aside from the fact that he's out of work, a recent widower, and the father of a 6-year-old daughter with mysterious, recurrent headaches, New York accountant Michael Goodman leads a charmed life. The spare tire on the car he rents while on a futile job hunt in Florida just happens to hold enough high-grade heroin to jump start anyone's life. When various law enforcement agencies ignore his attempts to turn it in, Goodman decides to unload it himself. Joseph Klempner's former employer probably won't find the dueling posses of bumbling drug agents as funny as other readers, but you can't please everybody. Klempner's last thriller, the bleaker but equally inventive Felony Murder, is available in paperback. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

What happens when a basically nice guy, down on his luck, stumbles across a fortune in illegal drugs? The premise is about as cliched as one can find in the thriller game these days, but Klempner (Felony Murder, St. Martin's, 1995) manages to inject some energy and humor into it. Michael Goodman, recently widowed, is an out-of-work New York accountant in Florida for a job interview. The interview is a disaster, but Goodman then discovers a stash of drugs in his rental car. He does his best to report his find, but, frustrated with the red tape and general ineptitude of law enforcement, he heads home with the drugs. Learning that his young daughter, Kelly, may be seriously ill and realizing he has no insurance to pay for her treatment, his moral dilemma vanishes. Goodman's incompetence as a drug dealer leads him into some dicey situations, and soon the whole city seems to be after him. Klempner breaks no new ground here, but readers looking for entertaining, and often funny, summer reading won't care. Recommended for large popular fiction collections.?Dean James, Murder by the Book, Houston
Copyright 1997 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: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312964463
• ISBN-13: 978-0312964467
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,684,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever story premise. Interesting main character. Good read., June 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shoot the Moon (Shoot Moon) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was fun. Great story that grabs you early on. Sympathetic main character that is an "everyman" one can easily identify with. Well-written. Author seems to have a knowledge of police procedures without needlessly "showing-off" that knowledge - information is only described as necessary for the story. Police are probably depicted as dumber than they are, but hey, what do I know? Maybe this *is* close to mark -- if so, we should be worried. Nice depiction of a father-daughter relationship that you dont always see in novels of this kind.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Booklist , August 19, 1997, October 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shoot the Moon (Shoot Moon) (Mass Market Paperback)

Following on the heels of his well-received first novel, Felony Murder (1995), Klempner has scored another success. Michael Goodman is an out-of-work accountant, trying to single-handedly support a seriously ill daughter after the death of his wife. On a journey from New York to Fort Lauderdale for a disastrous job interview, he discovers millions of dollars worth of drugs in the trunk of his rental car. Being a basically honest guy, he tries to turn them over to the police, but they keep rebuffing him. With mounting medical bills in mind, he succumbs to temptation and takes the drugs home. He is not any better selling the drugs than he was in his interview, and he rapidly falls under the scrutiny of multiple law-enforcement and criminal organizations. All of them see him as their chance for a big score. Klempner's style is both engaging and humorous, and he maintains a skillful level of suspense throughout the story. Big fun. Eric Robbins Copyright© 1997, American Library Association. All rights reserved

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kirkus Reviews, October 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shoot the Moon (Shoot Moon) (Mass Market Paperback)

From Kirkus Reviews , June 15, 1997 Think it would be fun to be sitting on top of something worth a cool $5 million? Not when the something is primo heroin....Readers who root for the good guys will enjoy the special challenge posed by Goodman, too nice to do time for dealing (so he can't be caught) but too principled to make a killing from selling heroin (so he can't get away).-- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Synopsis