Sipping his second cup of coffee of the day, Duncan Sloan picks up the phone. It's not the kind of call that anyone wants to receive. On the other end of the line is county cop Mose Booker letting Sloan know that a phone with his number on it was found tucked into the seat of an abandoned car. No big deal? Under normal circumstances it probably wouldn't be, but when Sloan's number is the last one called on that phone, and there's a dead girl in the trunk - it is a big deal.
Booker wants private detective Sloan to tell him who the phone belonged to and exactly what the circumstances of the call were. If not, Sloan is looking like a candidate to get pulled into the case as an accessory to murder. Not a good look for a man with as checkered a past as Sloan has.
The request puts Sloan in a bind because that phone belongs to a childhood friend who has a connection to the dead girl. The fact that this friend is not in the cleanest of businesses himself, then suddenly not too anxious to be found, leaves Sloan chasing shadows and cursing the dark.
This book is a freight train, off the tracks and barreling down the Orange Blossom Trail, taking Sloan into a world of guns, drugs, murder and general nastiness. Sloan's journey is uphill and steep enough on its own, but with Booker hounding and threating Sloan at every turn, that journey is even worse than one would imagine.
The inimitable Truluck puts his southern stylings to task with this fast-paced book, showing you the real Florida in his uniquely twisted way. Try putting it down and not think about the people and places in this novel and what could possibly happen next under Truluck's fickle Florida skies. This is pop noir, babies, this is Bob Truluck.
"...a bare sprinkling of old money, a thug or two and a hedge-funder or two insulating their own kids from the hellish worlds they perennially create... Welcome to Bob Truluck's shake-and-bake PI novel and this great southern writer's look at the drug-laced, swamp-hiding, gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, Christianity-loving, perpetually-rotting, bright-red-Ferrari-bandaged open sore that is the contemporary state of Florida. Elmore Leonard on meth-Flat White is not politically correct-it is, however, highly entertaining, and a little frightening." -Kent Harrington
"Truluck writes in a language you've never heard before, yet you understand every word. And it's not just the unique voice that ensnares you, it's characters that jump off the page and a story arc that turns you every which way but loose. Flat White is a flat-out must read, but don't say you weren't given fair warning. If you start this trip, you're at Truluck's mercy until he lets you go at the other end-and Truluck has no mercy!" -Lono Waiwaiole
About the Author: Suspected pop-noirist Bob Truluck resides in Orlando, Florida where he lives life to the fullest with his wife and ardent supporter, Leslie. Truluck has been nominated for some good stuff and has actually garnered a couple of fairly nice looking awards. His influences would include Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, Charles Willeford, Nathan Heard and James Crumley, but not necessarily in that order. Truluck has no favorite color or lucky number and will eat most anything but rutabaga.
