Sleep with the Fishes » (Reprint)

Brian M. Wiprud
Age: Wears red tennis shoes
Physical Description: Diabolical & Occasionally Fiendish
Profession: Mystery Author, Outdoor Writer & Photographer
Accomplishments:
*Independent Mystery Bookseller's Association Bestseller
*Lefty Award for Most Humorous Novel
*Barry Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original
Favorite Books:The Squid and I, Chuck Flink Tubing Badgers for Fun and Profit, Bubbles McCoy
Favorite Movies: "Bowanga! Bowanga!," "Eegah!"
Hobbies: Knife Throwing, Sword Swallowing, Hanging by Fish Hooks
Favorite Lines: "What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. It was a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an axe." WC Fields.
Favorite Scotch: Bourbon

Wiseguy Sid “Sleep” Bifulco doesn’t need no stinkin’ witness protection program. The mobster-turned-snitch, who always put his victims gently to sleep before whacking them, did his prison time and now has a new rural hideaway and a new avocation: trout fishing in a scenic river valley. Except that a bunch of local yokels won’t leave him alone.

From a sexy trout dealer in crimson hiking boots to a cop married to a pregnant porn star, everybody in this little town has an angle, a grudge or a crush on somebody. And Sid needs to figure out these yahoos fast—because with a vicious Mafia killer on his trail, a warden on his doorstep, and a highly incriminating videotape making the rounds, it turns out that the simple life isn’t so simple after all....

Publishers Weekly

Three elements make the latest from Wiprud (Crooked) a laugh-out-loud triumph. First, its protagonist: ex-professional hit man Sid "Sleep" Bifulco, a wise guy relocated to a "dot on the map" fishing community called Hellbender Eddy, Pa., after turning state's evidence against his mob buddies. Although he's never dropped a line in the water all he knows about his second career he learned in the slammer from magazines like Sports Astream and Rod & Rifle he doesn't let that stop him from diving into the fishing pool nose first. Second, its supporting cast: Sid assumes that country folk are either ignorant or na ve, and despite their quirks Little Bob videotapes his every waking moment; the state trooper's pregnant wife refuses to let her delicate condition get in the way of her X-rated movie career they get to prove him wrong, to delicious effect. Finally, a bucketful of hilarious miscommunications gives the plot which includes the accidental slaughter of a scumbag and a missing video recording of it, a guardian angel with a soft spot for assassination, and a secret from Sid's past that could turn his fishing buddy homicidal a serpentine trajectory that makes this suspenseful black comedy a page-turning, one-sitting read. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.