The Wrong Doyle [Hardcover]

Robert Girardi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2004

Tim Doyle's uncle has left him a dilapidated mini-golf course and a broken-down bar. When all the wrong people pressure him to sell out fast, Tim starts to wonder if there is something to the rumors of treasure his pirate ancestor is reputed to have left somewhere along the mysterious coast.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set on the pirate-haunted Atlantic coast just south of the Maryland-Virginia border, Girardi's delightfully improbable and loosely plotted fourth novel (after Vaporetto 13) is a raunchily erotic mishmash of pirate lore, putt-putt golf, corporate chicanery, Irish gangsters and tongue-in-cheek reflections on matters ecological. Womanizing, hard-boozing vagabond Tim Doyle is called back from Paris to discover he has inherited his uncle Buck's rundown putt-putt golf course and saloon (complete with Buck's nubile young mistress, Maggie) on the remaining family land in a remote Virginia backwater. Pressured to make a quick sale by high-rolling real estate developers with a history of drug dealing, Doyle smells a rat (actually a rotting carcass of a rare endangered albino opossum left as a dire warning to sell or be killed). The pressure escalates when two hoods are sent to burn Doyle and Maggie out, but that only increases their resolve to restore the golf course and hang on. Appearances are also made by a wealthy ex-girlfriend of Doyle's, a corrupt soft drink manufacturer using Chinese slave labor, agents from the INS and Fish and Wildlife Service, an ancient document revealing the location of a buried pirate ship and the dwarf henchman of a gay Irish air-conditioning mogul lately turned soda pop capitalist. For readers willing to suffer the ancestral Doyle biographies prefacing the novel's five sections, this droll parade makes for a passably good read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

We may still be searching for a really good golf mystery (see Corrigan on p.1269), but we've found a jewel of a miniature-golf mystery. Girardi's boisterous comedy is about much more than miniature golf, of course, but at the center of the story is Doyle's Pirate Island Goofy Golf, a putt-putt layout on a remote Virginia border island belonging to the Doyle family, whose ancestors extend back to a real-life pirate in the seventeenth century. Running the links at the moment, though, is Tim Doyle, recently returned to Pirate's Island to find that someone wants to buy his island and isn't taking no for an answer. Girardi goes on from there to weave a mostly outrageous plot about buried treasure, gangsters in the air-conditioning business, and several generations of boozing, womanizing, right and wrong Doyles with knacks for getting into trouble and thinking on their feet. It's all great good-hearted fun, but best of all is Girardi's near-Homeric prose extolling the joys of goofy golf ("Think of all the courses in all the resort towns . . ."). Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Justin, Charles & Co.; First Edition edition (February 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932112189
• ISBN-13: 978-1932112184
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,462,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ROBERT GIRARDI is the author of five nov­els and one volume of novellas. His short fic­tion has been pub­lished in Tri-Quarterly and Vir­ginia Lit­er­ary Review, and his non-fiction has appeared in The New Repub­lic, Washingtonian Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and The Wash­ing­ton Post. His novels have been translated into nine languages--including Hebrew and Estonian. He lives in Wash­ing­ton, DC with his three children. He sells tickets at a movie theater in Bethesda, Maryland, and works as sexton of Our Lady of Victory Church in Washington, DC. (Visit him on the web at girardilit.com : email at [e-mail].)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for Mother's Day nor Father's Day. ERRRRCK! 1 star, November 9, 2005

By 

Janet Wilder (Detroit, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrong Doyle (Paperback)

Can't disagree more with the reader who thinks this
would make a good Father's Day gift. What father would
want to read a "wanna-be" pirate's novel from a
wanna-be novelist? It reads as phoney to me, sorry.
Very phoney. Not for Mother's Day nor Father's Day.
Like the gentleman writing in from Istanbul,
I could put it down and did. 1 star.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read Chock Full of Outrageous Characters, October 17, 2004

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wrong Doyle (Hardcover)

This madcap and sometimes melancholy novel set in the Virginia tidewater region reads like a somewhat more literary riff on a Carl Hiassen caper, right down to the oddball gangsters and the anti-development sermonizing. The protagonist, Tim Doyle, is the latest in a long line of self-made adventurers and rogues. These ancestors are presented in vivid standalone sections prefacing each section. The first of this is a notorious pirate from the 1670s, who may or may not have buried his treasure in Virginia. Later Doyles include a hardscrabble oysterman in the 1770s who sells to George Washington, a gambler in 1850s New Orleans who becomes part of an ill-fated predecessor to the Bay of Pigs operation, a tough as nails oysterman in 1890s Virginia who battles the oyster conglomerates and their hired thugs, and an ex-Marine in post-WWII Los Angeles.

In the present day, Tim Doyle is living in Paris, having been thrown out by his marriage and restaurant by his Spanish wife. He receives a message that his beloved uncle has died, leaving Tim the last remaining Doyle land in Virginia, complete with pirate-themed miniature golf course and roadhouse bar. He arrives to find his uncle's young mistress minding the property, and a surprisingly large offer to buy his land from a real estate development outfit fronted by his old drug-dealing pal Roach. This offer coincides with the appearance of a dissected albino possum left in one of the miniature golf dioramas as a warning, which only gets Doyle's dander up and makes him stubborn and determined not to sell. The story plays out as Doyle doggedly attempts to find out who is after his land and why, as more and more improbable forces are arrayed against him.

As with Hiassen, every character is both improbable and completely engrossing. There's Doyle's ex-girlfriend Bracken, an old money belle who is determined to erase her entire inheritance as fast as possible. His old pal Roach, who has traded his coke dealership for a spot on the city council and lives in a lavish spread with a strange Jamaican servant/mistress. A crew of Irish hoodlums (including a dwarf), led by a ridiculously gay capo whose legitimate business is air conditioning. The gangster's pothead daughter, who is determined to bed Doyle. Not to mention the two dour Fish and Wildlife Service agents who arrive to investigate the dead albino possum...

The plot rattles along at breakneck speed, as Doyle keeps getting attacked, seduced, and general made the target of all manner of mischief. Corrupt corporations figure, as do corrupt local governments, good ole' boy sheriffs, Chinese slave laborers, ancient pirate treasure, and a fight night. It's all over the map, incorporating elements of the thriller, the multigenerational family saga, old fashioned adventure, and sexy romp. Girardi just barely manages to keep it all together, but the sheer exuberance of it all, the oversized characters, vivid language, and fascinating backstory combine to make it a great read.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pirates yesterday, Mobsters today; finest kind of tale, July 28, 2004

By 

KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wrong Doyle (Hardcover)

If you've ever had a thing for pirates (and who has not?!), enjoyed miniature golf on a summer night or go for a semi-raunchy read, then Girardi's The Wrong Doyle is for you. I quite liked it. A terrific summer read, any other time of the year works out pertty good, too. Entertaining and diverting; made me want to visit that part of the Virginia/Maryland coast.