Customer Reviews

Umbrella Man

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jack Flippo has seen better days, but he seems on his way back up when former cop Eddie "Bent" Nickles sends him in search of a missing piece of film. A film shot November 22, 1963 in Dallas. Soon Flippo is bounced from his new job with a tony law firm, leaving behind its plush carpets and mahogany credenzas.

Sylvan Dufrain, the film's photographer was shot and then burned in his Cadillac a month after the Kennedy assassination...or was he? Dufrain's wife and brother are now operating a shop that specializes in whoopie cushions and fake vomit.

Lola (aka Jennifer), Jack Flippos "artistician" girlfriend is putting together a show using blowup dolls from the local porn shop. Her plans are deflated by bullets shot through the living room window of the home she shares with Flippo.

Weldon Chaney is a disabled hitman saddled with the sons-in-law from hell. His efforts to make competent criminals of them are doomed to failure.

Treena Watts is a bail agent with a heart of gold. She is searching for answers about the death of her brother Mineola. She is leery of Jack Flippo's help since it was Jack who sent Mineola to prison.

This loopy cast of characters collide in a wickedly funny morality tale. Swanson expertly juggles the subplots that come together to a satifying ending that leaves Jack back in his linoleum-floored office with its metal desk.

Watch out Kinky Friedman, Doug Swanson's breathing down your neck!

This one kept me up late, laughing and turning pages. It's full of dead-on dialog, and plenty of twists, turns and surprises. I hadn't read Swanson before, but now I'm a fan.

All Dallas private investigator Jack Flippo wants is a chance to return to practicing law. However, as is his norm, when the opportunity arises for the former Assistant district Attorney to return to law, he fumbles it and soon is back working as a sleuth for a bunch of losers.

Frustrated with life and himself as a screw-up, Jack accepts a mangy client interested in attaining the DuFrain film. Rumor has it that the black and white film proves that a second person, THE UMBRELLA MAN, was an active player in the Kennedy assassination. To obtain the film, Jack must confront a homicidal friend who will kill to make a buck and a dying retired killer who will gladly come out of retirement to kill for a buck.

Anyone who enjoys an antihero loser as their sleuth will flip over Jack Flippo, who has flopped more than Fosbury. In his fourth outing, Jack remains a dreamboat of a dud who cannot do anything right. Though the support case never quite grips the audience, the story line of UMBRELLA MAN is entertaining and fun to read due to Jack who was burned when he jumped the candlestick. Doug Swanson continues to write humorous tales that fans will fully enjoy.

Harriet Klausner

I didn't know what I was buying when I got this book, I just read the back and it caught my eyes. So I took it home and ended up finishing it in less than a week. I'd get tired of reading, then something would happen that made me keep it in my hands. Pick this one up for sure.

If you like like them funny with lots of action with a macho male hero and convoluted double-double cross plots this is for you. Elmore Leonard comes to mind - although the dialog is not quite up to his standards. Flippo is not quite as rounded a character as Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, and the prose is not quite as good as Sue Grafton's but this is up there in that league. Kennedy assasination buffs might love it or hate it, but you don't have to be one to enjoy it. Dense Dallas atmosphere.

In this fourth installment of Jack Flippo, former lawyer turned private investigator, he's consumed with the possible conspiracy surrounding the JFK assassination in Dallas so many years ago.

Some dubious film has surfaced (again) which shows a gunman on the grassy knoll. It was available back then but was covered up, thus the conspiracy theory. All these years, the t.v. news shows have provided this 'proof'; yet, no one in government would even consider it. J. Edgar Hoover kept all the evidence 'private' as he did the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

A friend of Jack's owns a "you-are-there JFK deathmobile" promoting this presence of a second gunman by taking groups of crackpots to the triple overpass there near the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald was employed.

I still remember vividly watching live t.v. when Jack Ruby assassinated Oswald. Was this meant to be? Ruby was a part of the underworld of gangsters. Was he set up as Oswald had been to take all the flak and be killed while some higher-ups in goverment got rid of our enigmatic president of the U.S.

At that time, as a young mother, I was doing some freelance secretarial work for an insurance adjuster by taking dictation at his home office and typing at mine. That day, we'd been hard at work but I went down the hill in the historic part of Pulaski to prepare lunch for my family. Around noon, ET, the radio announcement aired about President Kennedy being rushed to the hospital after being shot in the head. I called Brandon Davis to see if he wanted me to return for more dictation and was told we'd try. He, his wife Elsie, and I spent the next few days watching all the happenings on their t.v. set. Needless to say, not much work took place.

I was appalled to see an innocent man gunned down while in custody of police, with his hands behind his back -- no way to defend himself. In this fine country, each person who is arrested is deemed to be innocent until proven guilty and entitled to his day in court. This 'right' was taken away from Lee Harvey Oswald with a national audience watching mesmerized.

Sometimes the guilty get away with murder (a la OJ) as our court system is flawed and money can buy freedom. It's not the unknowns like Oswald, Sirkan, and James Earl Ray (all shady characters) who receive Justice. One Chief of Police told me "don't you know, there is no justice."

Freedom (from harming others) goes to those in power or have the money to hire important, nasty lawyers. Jack was an honest man who was taken in by trying to prove something which will never be proved. Lyndon Johnson made sure of that; after all, this master assassination took place in his state and he benefitted to the tune of being our most vulgar president ever.

Doug Swanson is a pretty good writer, but I wish he'd let Jack retire and find a "Fletch" (a la Gregory Macdonald).