While Drowning in the Desert

By: Don Winslow

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Shamus Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Don Winslow combines breathless suspense, zany wit, and whiplash action in his latest novel featuring grad student/private eye Neal Carey. Now Neal is assigned to escort monkeyish octogenarian Natty Silver home from Las Vegas to Palm Springs. Natty, once a burlesque top banana, has a nonstop barrage of corny jokes, an eye for an aging cocktail waitress, and a chronic disappearing act.

When Neal catches up with him, he can see why Natty doesn't want to go home. Sole witness to a crime, he's now the quarry of hard-faced suits, a fascist con artist, and a career-track assassin. And bodyguard Neal, scorching through the trackless desert at eighty miles per hour, brooding on his inner child by freezing starlight, and looking down the barrel of one gun too many, is soon dodging vultures and on the brink of a surprise watery grave.

©1996 Don Winslow (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Winslow has a way with crisp dialogue…And the laughs keep coming.”

(Publishers Weekly)

“Guaranteed to provoke a laugh…A thoroughly enjoyable comic mystery.”

(Booklist)

Fun read!

This was an enjoyable short book. Lots of humor and a twisted plot. Total brain candy which I needed after reading some dark, gloomy books. Joe Barrett is one of the best narrators ever - right up there with Jim Dale.

Funny

Funny and interesting but mostly funny. Performance also helped. Gonna try another book by this author. Do recommend!

a good story with a lot of humor

this isva very good story with interesting characters who are funny. it involvesvarson, kidnapping, murder and the mob. I recommend it.

Mixing Humor and Danger Works

Don Winslow writes an enjoyable, humorist story and Joe Barrett's narration makes the story come to life.

Who's On First?

In his last outing, Neal Carey learns who's on first -- I don't know, third base! Tasked with bringing aging Vegas comedian Nathan Silverstein home, Neal hears every bad joke and tall tale the old codger ever told as Don Rickles, er, Nate Silver. That includes not only how he taught Lou Costello his signature comedy routine, but the whole story around it.

There's a mystery revolving around why Silver doesn't want to go home that brings in a few other crazy characters. It doesn't amount to much, but that's hardly the point. This is about a classic road trip / buddy movie, the young guy / straight man saddled with wise old wise-cracking war horse, learning a thing or three along the way.

Don Winslow went on to write some long, weighty volumes about criminals and cartels and con men. But his early work with the Carey series, lighter though it is, is still worth revisiting.