Saguaro Riptide

Welcome to the Saguaro Riptide Motel ... It's a seedy little landlocked surf joint in the desolate Arizona desert. It's got frostbite-inducing A/C, an over-chlorinated swimming pool, and it's own junkyard. A veritable oasis, and the rates are low. And it's where the not-so-elite meet - for the biggest dis harmonic convergence since the invention of gunpowder. Ex-light-heavyweight champion of the world Jack "Battle-Axe" Baddalach will be there. So will buttoned-down Muslim button man Woodrow Saad Muhammad. Sheriff Wyetta Earp is due as well - she of the black belt, bad manners and big boots to fill. And Major Kate Benteen, the bikini-clad war hero/prodigous surgeon/Olympic diver/champion horse racer/movie starlet, is in Room 23. Between them, they've got lots of sticky, dirty, sometimes broken fingers in a fat two-million-dollar mafia pie. (Almost) everyone wants the cash. Everyone (except Jack) has a gun. And not even a special guest appearance by a shotgun-toting, robot-voiced, fanatical Elvis impersonator will keep things from gettng uh-huh-huh- ugly in Stoker-winner Norman Partridge's wild, pop-gonzo grotesque extraordi- noir extraordinaire! Surf's up! The Critics Rave: "Partridge is the hottest new writer going." - Joe R. Lansdale "Nitro-laced, in-your-face fiction for the 90s." - Locus "Partridge writes like nobody else. He's a big talent and he's going to get a whole lot bigger." - Ed Gorman "Partridge writes with a rock beat ... crossed with hard-slammin' punk." - Booklist "A major new talent." - Stephen King "The remarkable things here are the energy and non-stop flow of invention with which the author invests each scene and each character. There is not a scene in this book that sounds as if it might have been written by anyone other than Norman Partridge." - Cemetery Dance