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Brawl in Bardo
by George Bixley
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of Los Angeles, rooting out insurance fraud, not afraid to use whatever means necessary to get things done, and not about to hold back with his fists. A queer antihero for a new age, Slater walks the line between ordinary life and the frayed fringes of society, keeping his balance with the back-channel support he gets from his idiot cop ex-boyfriend, Conrad, and regular squeeze Andy.
Helping his business partner, Max, track down a bail jumper, Slater spends the night in a dusty Mojave Desert town. Things look different in the liminal space between LA and Vegas, like the bardo state between lives, and Slater soon finds himself stalking a sleazy dermatologist who’s in a custody battle with another croaker for a seemingly worthless statue. With high-tech surveillance and a late-night break-in, bouncing between the metropolis and Sin City, Slater zeroes in on the truth while navigating some irksome emotional entanglements and his own sobriety.
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Selected praise:
“I am hooked on reading about Slater Ibáñez. I read the last two as fast as they arrived. He scares me and entices me all at the same time!”
“We get to see a little deeper into Slater’s world … watching him grow a bit as a human being. I think the author offsets the very masculine personality with nature—it’s pretty cool.”
“Great poolside or beach reading. The protagonist is sleazy, but has … a heart in the end. A real page turner!”
