Stuff to Die For: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Don Bruns (Author)
Key Phrases: Rick Fuentes, Vic Maitlin, Jackie Fuentes (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Set in South Florida, this middling thriller from Bruns (Barbados Heat) never quite manages to persuade the reader to buy into its concept. Best friends Skip Moore and James Lessor have partnered in various hare-brained schemes since grade school, but their latest lands them in the midst of murder and international intrigue. After Lessor gets Moore to join him in a moving business, the pair are hired by an attractive divorcee, Jackie Fuentes, to haul away the possessions her ex-husband, Rick, left behind. That routine assignment turns into something quite different when they accidentally open one of Rick's letters and find a severed finger inside, a discovery that enmeshes them in a plot by Cuban exiles to topple Castro. A prose style that falls short of the standard set by such chroniclers of the Florida crime scene as Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey fails to compensate for a plot that on the improbabilities.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* On Florida's lower east coast, only one thing flourishes more luxuriantly than crime, and that is crime writing. With Bruns' second offering, we are presented with yet another set of lovable freaks and oddballs; this batch will remind the reader of Tim Dorsey's cast of whacked-out characters but with the narrative voice and feel of Mark Twain's Huck Finn. The protagonist, Skip (aka Eugene), and his high-school pal James work dead-end jobs in one of Miami's deadest ends, Carol City. When James comes into a windfall, the friends devise a business plan over late-night beers, buy a one-ton box truck, and go into the freelance hauling business. Their first job, arranged for by Skip's millionaire girlfriend, yields up a finger on which rests their high-school class ring. The plot involves the staples of South Florida fiction: anti-Castro elements and involvement by possible sinister government agencies. But the fun is in the characters. When Skip's girlfriend of many years informs him she is pregnant, he says in dead earnestness, "Who's the father?" Later, when Skip tells James the good news, he retorts, equally seriously, "Who's the father?" How can you not like a novel with characters like that? Glassman, Steve

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 283 pages
• Publisher: Oceanview Publishing; 1 edition (September 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933515104
• ISBN-13: 978-1933515106
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,059,463 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sit back, hang on, and enjoy the ride., October 3, 2007

By	Reader Views "www.readerviews.com" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (9/07)

James Lessor and Skip Moore are friends from childhood. James is a charmer that is always looking for a fast way to make money. Getting a surprise inheritance of $12,000 he decides to invest in an older truck to start a hauling business. Skip is the more conservative of the two. He has a very wealthy, yet non-exclusively committed girlfriend, Em. Em gets them their first job. Em has a super-rich friend that wants her cheating husband's belongings moved out of her Florida mansion. James and Skip are hired to do the job. Along the way, they accidentally discover a severed human finger in the ex's belongings. This gets them involved in a case that turns out to involve a faction that is trying to overthrow Cuba. A mysterious character named Angel steps in to help these two bumbling characters. They discover that he has a lot more going for him than they realized.

The action, in this story, is fast-paced and the characters are entertaining in their eccentricities. There is also a beat-up, oil-burning truck that adds a great deal to the plot. If James would learn how to drive it correctly, it wouldn't be as fun to read about. I would love to see more adventures based upon these characters. "Stuff to Die For" is an incredibly entertaining novel. If you like Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard, you will love this book!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wanted Moore, got Lessor, September 13, 2007

By	Lily Courthope - See all my reviews

Skip Moore and James Lessor are two delicious characters. They are best friends and brand new business partners in a hauling company that brings trouble in the form of a bloody finger bearing a ring that indicates the wearer was an old friend from school. With such wonderful characterization and a solid premise for a mystery/thriller I have to wonder just where this book went off the rails. The plot winds around and around, going nowhere. I figure Skip and James spent at least half the book wondering whether to call a guy named Fuentes, who was supposed to receive the mysterious finger in the mail. The denouement involved rogue CIA agents whose involvement was never really resolved, they felt like they were just thrown in to escalate the level at which the bad guys were playing. This wasn't a horrible book, some parts were well done, especially the friendship between the two main characters, but other parts seemed gratuitous (the pregnancy of Skip's girlfriend added nothing to the story; the girlfriend herself didn't add much). I didn't love the book, didn't hate it. Skip and James were memorable but not much else.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly crafted, action-packed story , December 2, 2007

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Set in Miami, "Stuff To Die For" is the story of Skip Moore and James Lessor, two guys who grew up in poverty watching other people travel in their the luxury cars, going to fancy clubs and elegant restaurants, and enjoying their money. Now in their twenties the two decide on a new get-rich-scheme (they've had a lot of them in the past). But things start going strange when they discover a severed finger in an envelope along with a ransom note. As they involve themselves into solving a kidnap caper, the two become enmeshed a world of family secrets, Cuban thugs, a gun-toting philosopher, a CIA agent, and a group of shadowy people plotting the overthrow of the Cuban government. Highly entertaining and enthusiastically recommended for personal reading lists and community library collections, "Stuff To Die For" is a superbly crafted, action-packed story of mysteries, explosions, car chases, gun battles, a quick eye for a buck, and two somewhat flawed heroes trying to figure things out and not get killed in the process!