BLOODY MARTINI

A monk is called from his Mexican monastery back to his hometown, where he kicks major ass.

His mobbed-up relatives have sequestered Thomas Martini with the Benedictines in the Sonoran Desert ever since he punched Michael Muldoon to death in a barroom brawl. But his sheltered life ends with a phone message from his own school friend Finn Sweeney, who begs him with his dying breath to take care of Bridget, the wife who’s gone missing. Despite his current residency, Tommy—who confesses, “I like trouble”—never hesitates. Back in Coalville, Bridget Breen had wrapped Tommy and everyone else around her little finger before she settled down with Finn, who purchased TV station WVIM and started raking muck. Tommy finds Coalville much as he’d left it. Queenie O’Malley and Shirley Kaminski, who’d both caught his eye back in high school, are still in residence, Queenie as the WVIM receptionist, Shirley as a meth-addicted prostitute. Mike Muldoon’s brothers, Killian and Connor, are still on hand too, salivating at the chance to take down their brother’s killer. The town is honeycombed with gangsters, enforcers, sex workers, and drug addicts, some of them Tommy’s relatives. Tommy’s sadistic schoolmate Brian Fury, now the district attorney, has moved on from torturing animals to spending his nights with the 15-year-old prostitute Ruby the Forbidden Fruit. Tommy unleashes the muscle he’s been hiding under a bushel whenever necessary, and he himself is rescued by Queenie, who, much to her surprise, kills three men before they can kill him. Everything, in short, is over-the-top, which is just the way Kotzwinkle likes it.

A fitting memorial to the wisdom of the hero’s late grandfather: “I’m always angry. It saves time.”