Gascoyne

A delightfully absurd blend of crime, comedy, and social commentary: “A wild novel of black humor... Wonderful” (The New York Times). Meet Gascoyne, a man who spends whole weeks in his car, eating, sleeping, and conducting his business via mobile phone. Gascoyne has found a new preoccupation―hunting down the killer of his business associate (last seen slithering away from the crime scene in a tree-sloth costume), and finding out how the southern California megalopolis has suddenly, despite all his power and prestige, slipped out of his grasp. “A mix of Sam Spade played by Inspector Clouseau plus Howard Hughes played by Dr. Strangelove—or all of them played by Bill Murray. In 1966 Gascoyne does what everybody does now: spends most of his time in his car talking on the phone... Our least-known great comic novel, a novel as prophetic as it is hilarious.” —The Austin Chronicle "Meet Gascoyne, a new breed of hero, a man who spends whole weeks in his car, eats there, sleeps there, and conducts his business - wielding power, pinching pennies, and fostering corruption - by mobile phone as he somehow manages to drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic at fifty miles an hour. But he's found a new preoccupation, hunting down the killer - last seen slithering away from the crime scene in a tree-sloth costume - of his business associate and finding out how the southern California megalopolis has suddenly slipped out of his grasp." A tour de force blending of genres - Alfred Hitchcock, jungle-war novels, science fiction, mad doctor movies, Westerns, James Bond, 18th-century mock epics, Greek tragedy and hardboiled detective stories - first published in 1966, Gascoyne is a hilarious look into a future that looks remarkably like the present. Gascoyne, an offbeat hero who spends weeks in his car, eating, sleeping, and conducting business, races against time to find the killer of his business associate, a murderer who escaped the scene of the crime disguised as a tree sloth