Moist: A Novel

what Could Cause Bob To Give Up His Job At The Los Angeles Pathology Lab That Demands So Little Of Him, Where He Can Play Tetris And Web Surf Whenever He Wants? What Could Lead Him To Walk Out On His Beautiful Girlfriend, Who Makes Her Living As A Masturbation Coach? What Could Make Him Risk Everything And Ultimately Transform Him Into Roberto, A Kingpin N The Los Angeles Mexican Mafia? An Erotic Tattoo. But Not Just Any Naughty Skin Ink, The mona Lisa Of Erotic Tattoos, Painted On A Severed Arm, Which Lands On Bob’s Desk One Morning. Bob May Have Fallen For The Woman In The Tattoo, But He’s Not The Only One Who Wants The Arm. There’s The telenovela-addicted Mobster Who Lost It, The Jefe Who Needs To Keep It Out Of The Clutches Of The Police, A Backstabbing Cannabis Aficionado/wharton Mba, And A Wine Snob Lapd Detective Who Knows The Arm Is The Evidence He Needs To Bring Down The Entire Mexican Mafia. From The Author Of delicious and salty, This Is “dark And Mordantly Funny” (t. C. Boyle), A “gritty, Entertaining Black Comedy” (publishers Weekly).los Angeles Times Book Review - Mark Rozzomark Haskell Smith's Energetic Thriller Is An Ode To The Hard-boiled Los Angeles Of Raymond Chandler And James Ellroy Spun Out In Brighter-than-life Starburst Colors: A City Where Roses And Cacti Grew Side By Side And Bright Orange-and-purple Birds Of Paradise Sprang Up Out Of Cracks In The Sidewalk. Across This Day-glo Wonderland, Smith Stretches An Unlikely Cast (and An Even More Unlikely Plot), Starting With Bob, A Lanky Dude Who Works In A Pathology Lab, And His Girlfriend, Maura, A Masturbation Therapist. When A Severed Arm Shows Up At The Lab, Bob Is Immediately Taken By The Bodacious Babe Tattooed On It; It's As If He's Transformed Into A Slacker Petrarch And She's His Mythic, Ink-on-flesh Laura. The Arm's Owner Turns Out To Be A Foot Soldier In A Mexican American Mob, And Bob, Of Course, Gets Mixed Up With These Quarrelsome Hoodlums. In Fact, He Ditches Maura To Pursue His Criminal Destiny As Roberto (and To Pursue The Girl In The Tattoo), While Maura Hooks Up With The Lapd Detective Assigned To The Severed-arm Case. And This, Really, Is Only The Half Of It. Like Its Bold Palette, moist Is Aggressively Over The Top, Yet Each Bizarre Turn Is As Stubbornly Logical As It Is Wonderfully Impossible. And It's A Small, Precious Miracle That This L.a. Story Boldly Surges Ahead For More Than 200 Pages Before Anyone Even Mentions A Screenplay. No Wonder Bob -- Roberto -- Is So Psyched To Live In Smith's City Of The Future, Hope Of The World.