Night of the Avenging Blowfish: A Novel of Covert Operations, Love, and Luncheon Meat - Softcover

Welter, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565120507 ISBN 13: 9781565120501

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1994

Synopsis

Secret Service agent Doyle Coldiron gets into hot water before you can say, "Just the facts, ma'am." Soon he's swept up in an outrageous flood of events in this cockeyed look at Washington life and at the confusing business of falling in love in the 1990s. "Among the wittiest American novelists writing today."--Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22; "Run, don't walk, to your nearest store for Night Of The Avenging Blowfish."--Milwaukee Journal.

About this title

About the Author:

John Welter began his writing career as a newspaper copy boy, buying cigarettes for the city editor. Since then he has worked as a reporter at newspapers in the Midwest and the South and published humor sketches in The Atlantic. His first book, Begin to Exit Here: A Novel of the Wayward Press, was widely praised and selected by Library Journal as a "Word of Mouth" recommendation for 1991. He lives in North Carolina, where he writes a humor column for The Chapel Hill Herald and is a manager for a mail-order company. He has never been a Secret Service agent, but sometimes wears dark glasses.

From Kirkus Reviews:

It's a daunting task for a writer to make a title like Night of the Avenging Blowfish make perfect sense, but in his fine second novel John Welter (Begin to Exit Here, 1992) does so with ‚lan. Secret Service agent Doyle Coldiron suspects he may be cracking up. Or at least having a nervous breakdown. What he is sure of is that he's lonely, and the only person who could save him, Natelle, a White House secretary, is married. So Doyle spends his time drinking with his fellow agents at their favorite bar, planning a covert baseball game against their arch rivals, the CIA: The time and location are classified (even the players don't know). When Doyle hears about a disgruntled White House chef's plan to serve canned luncheon meat at a formal state dinner, he decides not to take any action, partially because he wants to see how well the plan might work. Doyle could not have foreseen the aftermath, which includes a public reaction manifesting itself in tons of canned luncheon meat being sent to the White House; death threats by animal rights activists; and Doyle's own demotion from protecting the president to protecting a drunken ambassador from an island nation so small it must be penciled in to the map at hand. While all of this irreverent madness is delivered with great wit and humor, Welter retains firm control of the true story in his novel: one man's search for love in the '90s. Doyle's quest for romantic and spiritual love is bittersweet, surprisingly poignant, and, guided by Welter's sure hand, always emotionally true. Sometimes silly and frequently downright strange, this novel is full of insights into modern love that sneak up on the reader amid a lot of pleasantly off-kilter zaniness, making Night of the Avenging Blowfish a fun and satisfying read. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1565120507
• ISBN 13: 9781565120501
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 313