ALSO BY JESSE KELLERMAN
JESSE KELLERMAN
POTBOILER
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2012 by Jesse Kellerman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kellerman, Jesse.
Potboiler / Jesse Kellerman.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-399-15903-9
1. Writers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.E38648P68 2012 2012001823
813’.54—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Gavri
Praise for William de Vallée and the DICK STAPP novels
“There’s no one like William de Vallée. Every time I finish one of his books, I feel like washing the blood off my hands. And after
“Of all the books I have read this year, this is one of them.”
“If noir is your thing, you won’t find a blacker black than the blackness in William de Vallée’s postmodern darkness. Every word sent me reeling! Dick Stapp is harder than a body left in the sun, and twice as much fun.”
“No one does stomach-turning violence better.”
“Writing that grabs you by the throat and wrings you like a chicken on the eve of Yom Kippur.”
“Stand back, Maxwell Smart, there’s a new agent in town. . . . [Stapp] is a tough guy’s tough guy’s tough guy, the kind of hero who makes women swoon and men wish they had another testicle.”
“Mr. de Vallée’s stock-in-trade are plots twistier than those little wire twisty ties that come with bakery bread but that always go missing, forcing you to spin the plastic bag and tuck its neck underneath in order to maintain freshness.”
Contents
Cover
Also by Jesse Kellerman
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Praise for William de Vallée
ONE ART
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TWO COMMERCE
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THREE A NOVEL OF SUSPENSE
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FOUR (Welcome to West Zlabia!)
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FIVE (Welcome to East Zlabia!)
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SIX (Welcome [Back] to West Zlabia!)
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SEVEN DEUS EX MACHINA
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Acknowledgments
ONE ART
1.
After one hundred twenty-one days, the search was called off. The Coast Guard had stopped looking after three weeks, but the presumptive widow had paid for a private company to drag the entire Pacific Ocean, or as much of it as they could. With all hope lost, funeral arrangements were now under way. It was front-page news.
