Greasing the Piñata

by Tim Maleeny

Book Overview

"Definitely not for the faint of heart but just right for readers who like a gritty crime novel with a labyrinth of plot twists." --Library Journal

A former U.S. Senator vanishes days after his son goes missing. When they're both found dead on a golf course in Mexico, body parts missing, the Senator's estranged daughter Rachel resolves to discover what happened.

Private investigator Cape Weathers doesn't really want...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590585666
• ISBN13: 9781590585665
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Asian thrillers

Tim Maleeny's new Cape Weaathers' GREASING THE PINATA is a a well-plotted thriller. I read the novel concurrently with S. J. Rozan's THE SHANGHAI MOON. If you enjoy books with Asian themes, you will enjoy both. I preferred Maleeny's over Rozan's, but that is because I like a lot of action and dialogue. Both novels have a white protagonist whose partner is Asian. Maleeny's Cape Weathers is colorful and gutsy as is Rozan's Chinese P.I., Lydia Chin. Both novels come highly recommended.

Can't Wait For The Next One

Cape Weathers is my Harry Potter. Just like my daughters so loved jumping into J.K. Rowling's world of a young wizard at Hogwarts I find the same joy slipping into Tim Maleeny's land of a wisecracking detective in Chinatown. My girls have Harry, Hermione and Ron in an old school outside London. I get Cape, Sally, Sloth and Linda in parts of San Francisco that won't show up on your AAA Guide. "A Cape Weathers Investigation" (as the series is called) is a place full of dark alleys and back rooms brimming with gangsters, good guys, codes and rituals. I have thoroughly enjoyed each book in the series and highly recommend Greasing the Piñata. Have fun. I know I did.

Tim Maleeny does it again

Tim Maleeny is quickly becoming my favorite writer of crime fiction. His hero is Cape Weathers, and in this tale Maleeny kept me turning pages the way the novels of Chandler and Hammett do. Detective Cape Weathers is an original. He is by turns hard-boiled and irreverent, with a wicked sense of humor. There is no other detective like him going, and the book is a joy to read.

The new third installment of Maleeny's Cape Weathers series

Picking up a Tim Maleeny novel is like walking into your favorite offbeat restaurant, one where the menu is a bit different every day but is always reliably wonderful, entertaining and memorable. Such is the case with GREASING THE PINATA, the third installment in his Cape Weathers series. Cape Weathers is a reporter turned private investigator based in San Francisco, though his cases often take him to exotic corners of other locales. As one might guess from the title, GREASING THE PINATA begins with Weathers in Mexico, holding the short end of a stick at the apparent end of a missing persons investigation wherein the objects of his search have turned up, but in gruesome fashion. Weathers's client is Rebecca Lowry, an attractive female who has retained Weathers to find her missing brother and father; she believes their simultaneous disappearance is somehow connected. While Lowry's relationship with her brother Danny has been good, she's been estranged from her father, Jim Dobbins, for over 10 years. Dobbins was a charismatic but controversial California state senator before abruptly retiring. The discovery of their body parts at a resort hotel in Puerto Vallarte would seem to bring Weathers's investigation to a halt, but in fact it is only beginning. Beneath his trademark subtle wisecracks, Weathers is obsessed with discovering the "why" of the disappearance and murders of the men. He has assistance, not only from Sally Mei, his mysterious and deadly friend and occasional accomplice, but also from Oscar Garcia, the enigmatic Mexican police inspector who is much more than he seems to be. Weathers soon finds himself caught between two rival drug wars, and in the eventual crosshairs of Priest, one of the most terrifying assassins you will encounter in a literary setting this year. But Maleeny does much more than populate the novel with interesting characters. There is far more going on than a war between criminals that makes it hard to pick a winner; the underlying motivation to the events occurring here is one of the largest scams ever perpetrated on a world-wide basis. Additionally, Maleeny is possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge that in turn informs each of his novels, with different subjects providing an integral backdrop to the main storyline. One such example consists of exotic animals. I won't give anything away here, other than to warn you that after reading this book, you'll never surrender yourself to the mercies of a strange commode without checking the bowl first, and maybe more than once. GREASING THE PINATA is riveting, intriguing, challenging and, at times, hilarious. But as good a read as it is, I continue to have the feeling that Maleeny is just getting warmed up. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

fast-paced private investigative mystery

On a father and son trip to Mexico, retired California state senator Jim Dobbins and drug-addict Danny disappear without a trace. Jim's other adult child, his estranged daughter Rebecca, hires San Francisco private investigator Cape Weathers to bring them home. Although he does not want the case as he is realistically uncomfortable because he does not know Mexico, Weathers heads south. In Mexico he learns quickly that the mutilated bodies of both were found in an alligator pond of a Puerto Vallarte golf course. With his associate Triad trained assassin Sally Mei helping him, Weathers starts to connect the dots between California and Mexico politicians, rival drug cartels, and a financial system that Wall St. and DC would envy; getting out alive is a different story. The third Cape Weathers private investigative mystery (see STEALING THE DRAGON and BEATING THE BABUSHKA) is a fast-paced tale starring a terrific lead detective supported by a kick butt Asian partner battling against realistic killers. The political-drug dealing complex is brilliantly designed with violence being their cherry pie. However, the tale belongs to the two sleuths whose amusing war of words equalizes the inordinate death count. Harriet Klausner