October 5, 2005
I don't really know why Maurice Overby popped into my head when I sat down to blog today. For those of you who have never read the novels of Ross Thomas, gee, what are you waiting for? The guy's been dead for years but his books live on. For those of you who have read "Chinaman's Chance" or "Out on the Rim" or "Voodoo, Ltd," then Maurice needs no introduction.

Oh, he's rarely called Maurice. What he's called is Otherguy. You see, Maurice Overby is a con man of sorts, and whenever he is caught by law enforcement, he always gets off because it was "the otherguy" who did it.

In "Chinaman's Chance," he's working as a political consultant (Thomas had a pretty wry sense of humor. He probably felt there was very little difference between politicians and con men). In "Out on the Rim" he and a group of others go to the Phillipines to deliver $5,000,000 to a terrorist in hopes he'll retire, although their plan is to essentially steal the $5 million for themselves. The challenge, of course, being that there's no telling if any of their group will try to outcon the cons and make off with the money themselves. And in "Voodoo, Ltd," he's working with the same bunch of folks in an odd deal to determine the innocence of a movie actress accused of murdering her ex-lover movie producer.

Maybe what's interesting here is that I haven't read any of these books in years, but they and Otherguy and the others in these books--the pair of Artie Wu and Quincy Durant (usually known as That Fucking Durant), Booth Stallings (former terrorism expert turned, uh, adventurer and, um, con artist) and former Secret Service agent Georgia Blue--are so damned memorable. Aren't they bad guys? Not really.

Here, from "Voodoo, Ltd."

"...But let's get back to what you guys are. I know you're not private enquiry agents. And your overhead's too big to be con men. You might be into industrial espionage, but everybody tells me that's kind of boring. So what do you think you are? High-priced gofers? Noncombatant mercenaries? I classify everybody I meet by occupation and not being able to pigeonhole you two's giving me the jimjams."

"The jimjams?" Durant said.

"They're sort of like the willies."

"Would you be offended," Wu said, "if I were to ask where you learned your English?"

"In a minute. I want a job description first."

"Wudu, Limited," Wu said slowly, "is a closely held limited liability company that does for others what they cannot do for themselves."

"For a price," Glimm said.

"Certainly for a price."

"Then if it wasn't for the fucking price," Glimm said, "you guys could call yourselves saints."

"But since we do charge," Wu said, beaming, "why not just think of us as professional altruists?"


Ah well. Guess I'm just wishing there was another Ross Thomas novel coming out.

Best,
Mark Terry