Not all of Santa's elves are jolly. Gumdrop Coal has gotten fed up with dispensing only lumps of coal to bad children, and he decides to visit a few to mete out more "hands-on" punishment. But he doesn't stop with the kids -- after all, who are the biggest influence in a child's behavior? The parents. Then Raymond Hall, a father Coal "decked" ends up dead (shot in the eye with a Red Ryder BB gun), and Coal is framed for the murder. While trying to clear his name -- with the help of his relentlessly optimistic friend Dingleberry Fizz and the sassy (possibly femme fatale) reporter Rosebud Jubilee -- Coal discovers the plot is much more complicated than a simple frame. Someone is out to destroy not only Santa but Christmas itself!
This unlikely mash-up of noir and Christmas story shouldn't work, but it does. With nods to just about every noir and holiday convention -- usually with a twist -- there are also some clever pop culture references. That alone would make a refreshingly original book in its own right, but there's also a deftly plotted mystery here and a unique gumshoe who would give Sam Spade a run for his money. Anyone who's ever groaned at the 100th repeat of It's a Wonderful Life or felt sorry for the misfit toys in Rudolph will love this book. (Readers of Jasper Fforde should particularly enjoy the word play.) This is the perfect gift for the mystery lovers on your list with an off-key sense of humor, or those who enjoy the new genre of blending classics with zombies, vamps, etc. I certainly had a holly jolly good time reading it!
A satire of traditional Christmas stories and noir, The Fat
Man makes the perfect gift for the literary-minded.
A hardboiled elf is framed for murder in a North Pole world
that plays reindeer games for keeps, and where favorite
holiday characters live complex lives beyond December.
Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol,
two-foot-three inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is
angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the
fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one
special day each year. But somewhere along the way things
went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many
lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the
conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense
down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment
is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog,
trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some
get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only
thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup
call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from
landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up
dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action
Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn
who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the
life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forrest, battle the
infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter
with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends.
The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of
Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat
man himself. Holly Jolly!
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