The Corpse Wore Pasties

Even if it weren't from Hard Case Crime, I'd feel compelled to read THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES simply for the title. As a warm-blooded American male, how could I not? Jonny Porkpie — aka the real-life "burlesque mayor of New York City" — writes and stars as himself in the novel, in which performer Victoria Vice, hated by the others for her penchant for stealing their routines, dies onstage after drinking a prop bottle of poison that turns out to — whaddya know? — have actually contained poison? So despised was Victoria that the list of suspects is long, but Porkpie is Numero Uno, by virtue of having handed Victoria the bottle, at her insistence. Porkpie vicariously plays private dick in his fiction debut, investigating all the other performers — not strippers, as he continually points out, despite their lack of clothing — and putting his nose where it doesn't belong, much to the dismay of his wife, Nasty Canasta. It's a journey that earns him the ire of a heavy metal band and takes him to an S&M dungeon. It's also the kind of book that uses "bullshat" in the place of "said"; names its police officers Bronx and Brooklyn; and where an alibi is earned from shooting a masturbation video. In other words, it's a ribald, entertaining trifle — a perfectly acceptable noir tribute/sendup with more double entendres than ... well, everything. With genre-poking lines like "She's strung me along like a pink feather boa in a sixteen-minute striptease," this CORPSE makes for easy reading, but, like a burlesque routine itself, can wear thin after the initial buzz. Still, it's better than I ever would've expected from a newbie author with such a nom de plume, so I'll give this triple-D mystery a B-. —Rod Lott Buy it at Amazon.