Shoveling Smoke

By Austin Davis

Book Overview

Reveling in outrageous shenanigans and hilariously off-kilter characters, Shoveling Smoke does for East Texas what Carl Hiaasen's novels do for South Florida. Burned-out corporate lawyer Clay Parker chucks it all and moves from Houston to a tiny firm in a dusty small town, searching for his lost integrity and a simpler life. Instead, he lands in the middle of a bungled fraud case defending the disreputable and downright nasty Bevo Rasmussen, accused of torching the stables housing his overinsured thoroughbreds. Immediately confronted with corrupt officials, crazed survivalists, an incompetent hit man, an emu, and a naked county clerk, along with an assortment of vengeful wives and great barbecue, Clay discovers that nothing is what it seems to be. By the end, our hero gets way more than he bargained for, justice (Texas-style) gets served, and the reader gets a laugh-out-loud first novel.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811841529
• ISBN13: 9780811841528
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Quirky characters and crazy plot!

When I finished the book I didn't know what to do. I wanted to find out more about Clay Parker, the protagonist , as well as the bizarre characters that inhabit this small Texas town. Having moved to this small town from the big city after disappointment in his personal life, he discovers that he landed in a Fellini movie. Well, maybe "Jenks" (town) isn't quite the insane asyllum of Fellini world, but it is nuts! I didn't want to put the book down until I had finished it. I laughed out loud a couple of time, which I don't usually do. Actually chuckled about the book even after I had finished it. Just a fun ride. I may be forced to read it again unless the author publishes another book soon. I highly recommend the book to anyone wishing to escape the perfunctoriness of this world for a few hours. To Austin, please publish another book as soon as possible.

In short? Blow-snot funny.

"Shoveling Smoke" is Texan Austin Davis's first novel, and it is a doozy. As a Texan myself, I'm always leery of books (and films) set in Texas, because all too often they devolve into a rousing game of "laugh at the silly hicks." Fear not in this case, as Davis's novel, I'm thrilled to say, brings the laughs while refusing to reduce characters to caricatures. The plot is deceptively simple: Big-city (Houston) tax attorney decides to move to a firm in the backwoods and escape the rat race; cue wacky rural hijinks. So how does Davis take this overdone stranger-in-a-strange-land storyline to another level? With good old-fashioned whip-smart writing, that's how. The dialogue crackles with cleverness, and it's an authentic clever, not some contrived ain't-they-a-hoot nonsense. Hilarious rural-speak flows from these characters so naturally you can hear the voices in your head, and Davis presents that speech almost reverently, as evidence of wit and command of language, never as ignorance. The pacing is spot on throughout. And as far as the plot goes, Davis doesn't simply walk the line between the hysterically unexpected and the ridiculously unbelievable, he redraws it. As wild as some of the circumstances get in this novel, I never felt the tightrope of verisimilitude wobble beneath me; I believed every word. In addition, I was surprised, nasty old cynic that I am, to catch myself grinning on more than one occasion while reading this book. Sure, there were moments when I laughed out loud, but even a crappy book can get a zinger in here and there, so that's not necessarily a high compliment. But to discover yourself smiling with no knowledge of how long you've been doing it? That is something special. I am not just impressed by Davis but grateful to him, for I was having a bit of a downer week and reading his book was like having someone snatch a handful of sunshine and toss it to me. Get this book and catch some of that sunshine for yourself.

Still hurting from laughter...

I have not read a book this funny in years! I literally read the entirety in one sitting, reading half of it out loud to my husband who was rolling off the couch laughing. This book is not shallow humor, though. The authors delve into serious topics - ethics, religion, politics - with depth, wisdom, and thoughtfulness. They explore the obvious flaws of Stroud and Chandler, as well as the deeper and more perverse flaws of pious Paul Primrose or respected Stan-the-Man Pulaski.And the ending! There are more plot twists at the end than crooked roads in East Texas. Each twist is more surreal and surprising than the last, yet all are entirely believable. I shut the book completely satisfied that justice had prevailed.

Laughing until it hurts

I kept putting this book down so I could laugh without spilling coffee all over it. Maybe I have a warped sense of humor, or maybe I just love goofy places like Jenks, Texas - "a one-horse town with a two-block business district and a Dairy Queen."Clay Parker's first day in Jenks would send most people running for their lives. Clay, who burned out as a tax lawyer in Houston, has no place to go except to his new job at the offices of Chandler and Stroud, neither of whom is anywhere in sight when he arrives.Gilliam Stroud's in the drunk tank. Hardwick Chandler has dallied with a woman who handcuffed him to the bed before walking out. (This will not be the worst that happens to him. At a later rendezvous with the same woman, he's kicked half-senseless by an emu.)This law firm makes melting Jell-O look substantial, but somebody has to show up in court to defend a client who has already confessed to murder.That leaves secretary Molly Tunstall and Clay, who blew Houston with no shoes except the flip-flops he's wearing. They bail out Stroud and prop him up long enough to get the client off. A rambling wreck of a once-great trial lawyer, Stroud can still deliver the goods, drunk or sober.Clay Parker is a likeable character, trying to find his footing. A sleazy client is about to pull Chandler and Stroud into a malpractice suit involving insurance fraud. Clay gets a crash course in ways to make dirty money as a horse trader and cow kiter. He learns firsthand some of the wild and wonderful ways that lawyers, clients, judges and expert witnesses can screw up a case.The cover is a joke too far, but I love the title, from a quote attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "Lawyers spend a great deal of time shoveling smoke." Pat Browning, author of FULL CIRCLE, a Penny Mackenzie Mystery

"Shoveling Smoke" Is a Wonderful Read

I have often heard people describe certain books by saying "I was unable to put it down," and although I have known what the phrase means I had always doubted that it was literally true. Until I started reading "Shoveling Smoke." Within the first few pages of this inaugural novel, I found myself totally immersed in a fascinating plot, filled with the kind of people we have all either known or heard about all our lives. Laughing out loud on one page, then moving to the edge of my seat on the next page, I saw lawyers in a brand new light. So often the object of jokes, the characters who inhabit the court rooms in this rapidly-moving novel are comical at times, and yet their commitment to justice and fairness does their profession proud. If you are looking for a novel that will bring a smile to your face while you are in the process of solving a mystery and seeing justice prevail, then "Shoveling Smoke" is for you -- a great read.