Mortal Nuts: A Novel

Synopsis

Seventy-three years young, Axel Speeter has carved out a nice little life for himself. He owns his own business (a taco concession at the Minnesota State Fair), he lives comfortably at a Motel 6 (with his very own big-screen TV), he has two fine women working for him (Sophie Roman and her spectacularly endowed daughter, Carmen), and he has squirreled away a collection of Folgers coffee cans containing a total of $260,000 in cash - his life savings. Back in the old days, Axel and his buddies - the crusty Sam O'Gara and the diminutive Tommy Fabian - made their living as gamblers, crisscrossing the American West in Axel's '56 Lincoln, driving from one card game to the next. These days, Sam makes his living as a backyard mechanic, Tommy owns a mini-donut concession, and Axel sells tacos. Not as exciting or glamorous as life on the road, but Axel is content. He's had enough excitement, he figures. Time to settle down. Sophie Roman, his sometime lover, also seeks stability - but her pill-popping, mildly larcenous daughter, Carmen, craves excitement. And when Carmen meets a skinhead ex-convict named James Dean, she finds it - and more. As the Minnesota State Fair opens, Carmen and James Dean set their sights on Axel's coffee cans. Axel, Sam, and Tommy soon learn that they have a few more hands to play before they can settle down. By the last day of the fair, one of them will be dead.