Fate Is My Pimp Romance Takes A Rain Check

FATE IS MY PIMP picks up the torrid trail of Vic Valentine, Private Eye as he traverses the mean streets of San Francisco and beyond in search of a mobster's missing teenage daughter, encountering various voluptuous vixens, a female surf band, and a stalker leaving him mysterious musical messages, all while infiltrating an Elvis-theme commune for runaways, led by a deviously decadent Deacon Rivers. Follow the further misadventures of this misguided misfit introduced in LOVE STORIES ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME as he continues looking for love in all the wrong places, and unfortunately for him - finding it. Plus! ROMANCE TAKES A RAIN CHECK finds Vic back on the East Coast, tracking down a lead on his cop father's killer, visiting his mother in an asylum, and reuniting with his high school sweetheart, Dolly Duncan, now married to a doper dentist. Nothing is what it seems, times and people have changed, and Vic is going to learn the hard way - again - that some bones, and boners, are best left buried.

THE VIC VALENTINE CLASSIC CASE FILES collects for the first time in a single definitive edition the four novels between Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me and Hard-boiled Heart, all written in the mid-1990s, published by the author himself in 2011, and now available in this official anthology: Fate Is My Pimp, Romance Takes a Rain Check, I Lost My Heart in Hollywood, and Diary of a Dick, plus a new short story, "Brain Mistrust." From an Elvis-themed sex cult involving a missing Mob brat, to a sordid rendezvous with a homicidal high school sweetheart, to a real live B movie road trip, to a series of lusty liaisons with the wild women of the detective's promiscuous past, there are no experiences or encounters like these anywhere in genre fiction, all related to the reader in our hapless hero's intrepid, introspective, shamelessly self-centered voice. Welcome to the wild, wondrous, wacky and woeful world of Vic Valentine, Private Eye. Praise for the Vic Valentine series: "Valentine, with his bottom-feeding clientele and penchant for exploring the underworld's weirdest fringes, is like a West Coast cousin to the late, great Charles Willeford's serial detective Hoke Mosely (Miami Blues). As always, Viharo's pulp fiction prose rockets the reader through Valentine's adventures and as the pages turn, the author's encyclopedic knowledge and adoration of pop culture's kitschiest corners elicits gut-bursts of laughter." -Pete Crooks, author of The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV "Will Viharo writes not just neo-noir but neon noir, his Vic Valentine novels brilliant paeans to Chandler, Hammett, and other aspects of pop culture that Viharo clearly loves, from old B-movies to Frank Sinatra. But his roots are only a backdrop for Viharo's modernization of the detective genre. Vic Valentine is a detective who falls hard for his dreams, knowing full well that he shouldn't. For Valentine it seems that the greatest defeat would be to give in to the idea that he cannot win. In Will Viharo's fast paced, witty and wise Vic Valentine novels, there is always hope, however hardboiled it may be."-Rob Pierce, author of Uncle Dust and The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

THE VIC VALENTINE CLASSIC CASE FILES collects for the first time in a single definitive edition the four novels between Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me and Hard-boiled Heart, all written in the mid-1990s, published by the author himself in 2011, and now available in this official anthology: Fate Is My Pimp, Romance Takes a Rain Check, I Lost My Heart in Hollywood, and Diary of a Dick, plus a new short story, Brain Mistrust. From an Elvis-themed sex cult involving a missing Mob brat, to a sordid rendezvous with a homicidal high school sweetheart, to a real live B movie road trip, to a series of lusty liaisons with the wild women of the detective's promiscuous past, there are no experiences or encounters like these anywhere in genre fiction, all related to the reader in our hapless hero's intrepid, introspective, shamelessly self-centered voice. Welcome to the wild, wondrous, wacky and woeful world of Vic Valentine, Private Eye.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER More than ONE MILLION copies sold A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A New York Times Notable Book, and Chosen by Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bill Gates and Barack Obama as a Best Book of the Year “Wise and wildly entertaining . . . permeated with light, wit, youth.” —The New York Times Book Review “A classic that we will read for years to come.” —Jenna Bush Hager, Read with Jenna book club “Fantastic. Set in 1954, Towles uses the story of two brothers to show that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as we might hope.” —Bill Gates “A real joyride . . . elegantly constructed and compulsively readable.” —NPR The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City of New York. Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles's third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes. “Once again, I was wowed by Towles’s writing—especially because The Lincoln Highway is so different from A Gentleman in Moscow in terms of setting, plot, and themes. Towles is not a one-trick pony. Like all the best storytellers, he has range. He takes inspiration from famous hero’s journeys, including The Iliad, The Odyssey, Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, and Of Mice and Men. He seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as an interstate highway. But, he suggests, when something (or someone) tries to steer us off course, it is possible to take the wheel.” – Bill Gates

A lyric novel about the play of grief, empathy, new and old love, and the quest to overcome blindness in human relations. Caught in the cross-currents of a fraught divorce and a new love, the death of her mother, and a global pandemic, a writer plunges into an obsession with the work of 1960s French philosopher Roland Barthes. Her struggles to make sense of his work and life—and of what can happen to a woman's settled life in a single harrowing year—result in an engrossing, funny, earthy, and innovative lyric work. The quest for authenticity in motherhood, sexuality, and tenancy on the earth and in the home, as well as the unusual lyric form, make the novel unified in spirit yet transdisciplinary in approach.

1996 Minnesota Book Award winner — A Native American book The heart of the Native American experience: In this 1996 Minnesota Book Award winner, Kent Nerburn draws the reader deep into the world of an Indian elder known only as Dan. It’s a world of Indian towns, white roadside cafes, and abandoned roads that swirl with the memories of the Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull. Readers meet vivid characters like Jumbo, a 400-pound mechanic, and Annie, an 80-year-old Lakota woman living in a log cabin. Threading through the book is the story of two men struggling to find a common voice. Neither Wolf nor Dog takes readers to the heart of the Native American experience. As the story unfolds, Dan speaks eloquently on the difference between land and property, the power of silence, and the selling of sacred ceremonies. This edition features a new introduction by the author, Kent Nerburn. “This is a sobering, humbling, cleansing, loving book, one that every American should read.” — Yoga Journal If you enjoyed Empire of the Summer Moon, Heart Berries, or You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, you’ll love owning and reading Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn.

Ever since her former boss introduced her to her handsome, brilliant husband-to-be, Susan Shapiro has been on a marital mission. So far, she's fixed up twelve marriages and countless couples. Unlike all those "relationship experts" who are incapable of having a real relationship, or who took off their first ring to pledge their vows to their second or third life partner, Shapiro has witnessed--and scored--on all sides of the setup spectrum. She learned to charm her own blind dates, walk down the aisle with her personal Mr. Perfect, keep her first and only marriage rapturous, and expertly set up dozens of other duets. Now the author of the acclaimed memoirs Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart, and a self-proclaimed "diehard romantic optimist," shares her honest, provocative, and sometimes downright subversive slant on every stage of dating, sex, and domestic relations. She'll show you how to: - Fix yourself up first so you're really ready to be fixed up fabulously - Recognize raw marriage material and not let a good one get away - Break through your fears, insecurities, and dating defenses to land true love - Find love mentors who will set you up and help you close the deal - Decide which love and marriage myths to lose if you want to win - Keep fixing up your relationship so it stays warm and loving forever