The Big Whatever

The fourth novel in Peter Doyle's award-winning crime series takes his irresistible hero, Billy Glasheen, into new territory. When it comes to sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, Billy's always been in the vanguard, but as the swinging 60s turn into the 70s, he's living a quiet life. He has kids now, and he's in debt to the mob, so he's keeping his head down, driving a cab, running some low-level rackets. He may as well have gone straight, it's so boring. Then one day everything changes. He finds a trashy paperback in his cab whose plot seems weirdly familiar. Billy himself seems to be a major character in it. He can't think who could've written it other than Max, his old partner in crime who double-crossed him and left him in the mess he's in. Only Max is dead. He went up in flames, along with lots of cash, after a bank heist. But if Max is alive, Billy has a score to settle. And if he didn't get fried to a crisp, maybe the money didn't either. Billy has to find out, by following clues planted in that strange little book. He soon discovers he's not the only one on Max's trail, and has to deal with enemies old and new in his strangest adventure yet. With its ingenious novel-within-a-novel structure, The Big Whatever is a grab-you-by-the throat crime story, an original take on the early 70s in Australia, and a shrewd reflection on a defining moment in modern Australian life. And in the modern tradition of crime storytelling that includes the novels of Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford, the films of Quentin Tarantino, and TV series such as Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, The Big Whatever is at once darkly funny and deadly serious.