Showing results by author "Jim Yoakum" in All Categories

One day, in 1994, just as he was poised to land a major cover story in Rolling Stone magazine, music journalist, Derek Christian is whisked away by a mysterious man with multiple arms and tentacles named Kent and deposited in a luxury hotel called the Intergalactic, which is populated by beings and creatures from across the galaxy.

Meet Carter Kovac disgraced art dealer turned reluctant, bumbling private detective. After inheriting his famous father's detective agency, he immediately becomes entangled in a mysterious web of intrigue and murder--and the police think he's the culprit. Or they'd at least like to pin it on him, as that'd save a lot of time.

Set in Depression-era Savannah, Georgia, THE FRENCH STRANGER tells the story of Fred Dumas—a woman's pleasure specialist—who unknowingly kills Bunny Meyers, and is being hunted by two hit men set on him by her husband, a wealthy man who is running for mayor. This culminates into a cascade of dizzying absurdities that touch on a wide range of topics including: quantum and time theory, reincarnation, parallel universes, nirvana, baseball, World War I, chicken boxing, voodoo, Chick-O-Sticks, Ragnarök, and it answers the age-old question: if man made the chicken, did the chicken also make man?

Before Derek Christian became the confused hero, pawn of the universe, and reluctant cosmic adventurer of the Intergalactic novels, he was a simple copywriter at a radio station in Atlanta, WRFA: Radio Free America. This story tells how his writer's block set off a domino effect of murder and cosmic intrigue as The Fear chases him to his breaking point, and how he manages to escape into a world not of his own making.

A recently discovered manuscript, brittle and yellowed, written by Uncle Remus in 1886, suggests that he was the actual author of the story that's come to be known as "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

One night, in a London pub in the 1990's, I ran into a man who claimed to be the actor Michael Caine. The man said (in a thick Cockney accent): "'ere mate, if yer buy me a beer I will recite the bloomin' 'oole of Franz Kafka's classic tale of alienation, 'Metamorphosis,' also known as 'Die Verwandlung.' If, however, yer chose not ter ffen I shall kick yer in the bleedin' balls."