Dirty Work

By Reed Farrel Coleman

Gulliver Dowd is a little person in a world of hurt. After his sister, an NYPD policewoman, is murdered, he becomes a licensed PI. Dowd is shocked to discover that his mysterious new client is Nina, his high-school girlfriend and the one true love of his life. But the real surprise is yet to come. Nina hires Gulliver to find her runaway daughter, convincing him to take the case only when she confesses that the missing girl is Dowd's daughter too, the product of their high-school romance.

When he takes the case, Dowd must travel from an exclusive girls' academy to a Mafia don's mansion to seek the answer to his newfound daughter's disappearance. But all is not what it seems. What is the real surprise awaiting Gulliver Dowd?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781459802087

Reed Farrel Coleman

REED FARREL COLEMAN is a two-time Edgar Award nominee. He has also received the Macavity, Barry and Anthony Awards. To find out more visit: www.reedcoleman.com

Book preview

librarian

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter One

The phone rang. Gulliver Dowd hurried to his desk as fast as his stubby, uneven legs would carry him. As he hobbled along, he shook his head. What good were cell phones if you didn’t keep them in your pocket? He hated cell phones. In fact, he hated nearly everything these days. It seemed he had been angry ever since his sister Keisha had been murdered. Gulliver still recalled the old message on her phone.

Hi. I’m not home right now, but if you leave your name, number and a short message, I’ll get back to you. That is, if I survive my shift. Peace and love.

The first thing Gulliver had done after the funeral was erase that damn message. He had begged his sister to change it. He didn’t approve of her tempting fate. He told her life was hard enough already. But that was her way. Keisha was tough, a fighter. Tell her she couldn’t do something, and she would show you she could. That was half the reason she’d become a cop. People had said she would never make it. But her early life in foster care had taught her not to worry about fate. Problem is, things go wrong. It doesn’t matter why, they just do. They go wrong for everybody sooner or later. Things had gone very wrong for Keisha. Deadly wrong.

One day she didn’t make it back to the station house at the end of her shift. They found her empty patrol car on Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn. Its engine was still running. Her partner turned up at the Brookdale Hospital emergency room. He was barely conscious, his head bruised and bloodied. He couldn’t remember what day it was or how he’d gotten to the hospital. He couldn’t recall what had happened to him or where Keisha was. Two days later, they found her body behind an abandoned building on Livonia Avenue. Her hands were tied behind her. She had a bullet in the back of her head. The forensics report said she was on her knees when she died. Gulliver couldn’t get that image out of his head. He hated thinking that she had died alone and afraid.

It had been six frustrating years. The NYPD had come up empty on Keisha’s murder. He knew the cops had worked the case hard. When another cop is killed, they go all out. It didn’t matter that Keisha was an African-American woman. Or that she had only a few years on the job. Every cop knows the next person to get killed in the line of duty could be him. There were hundreds of clues to begin with. There are always lots when a reward is offered. But none of them worked out. The case went cold very quickly.

In a weird way Gulliver owed a debt to his sister’s killer. He didn’t like thinking that, but it was the truth. And Gulliver Dowd always faced the truth. No matter how ugly. No matter how hurtful. No matter what. When you looked like he did, you had to be honest with yourself.

Gulliver was so short that his reflection filled up only the bottom half of a mirror. That half showed him how cruel God was. Gulliver looked as if he had been built from mismatched body parts. His arms and legs were too small, even for his squat body. His hands were too big for his arms. His fingers, too small for his hands. His head, too big for his height. But the cruelest thing God had done was to give Gulliver a handsome face.

What a waste, he’d heard a girl say during his first year in college. What a waste.

Her friend agreed. A pity.

Pity. The thing he hated most. If his face had been as ugly as the rest of him, people would have just turned away. People do that. They turn away from people in wheelchairs and autistic kids at the mall. They don’t like being reminded of how much harder life could be. They don’t want to know that in the next moment everything could be taken away from them. But people didn’t turn away from Gulliver Dowd. Not at first. First they stared. Then they turned away. The looks on their faces said the same things those two girls had said back in college. What a waste. What a pity.

So Gulliver never turned away from the truth.

And if his sister hadn’t been murdered, he wouldn’t have become a private investigator. He wouldn’t have gone from being someone who was always bullied to someone with a black belt in karate. For the first two years of karate his body ached. But he loved the training. His teachers didn’t care about his looks. They cared only about results. If Keisha hadn’t been murdered, he wouldn’t have learned knife fighting from a retired Navy Seal. He wouldn’t have learned to shoot or gotten a handgun carry permit. It was easier to become an astronaut than get a gun permit in New York. Gulliver did it by getting a job as a gem courier. It was dangerous work to carry jewels on the streets of New York City.

Who is going to think anyone would trust me with diamonds and rubies?

Reviews for Dirty Work

[kayebarley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reed Farrel Coleman is, in my opinion. one of the best writers writing today. His work doesn't seem to get the attention I feel it should, but those of us who have been lucky enough to discover it are loyal fans. Dirty Work is not part of Mr. Coleman's Moe Prager series, but introduces us to a new protag I'm interested in getting to know a little better.

[kibosa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a quick enjoyable read. I kept thinking of a 40's black and white detective movie while reading - the characters, dialogue and plot. Very little in suspense as the plot unfolded. Both my daughter and I read it and could figure out who was who.

[scperryz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nothing overtly wrong with this book - potentially interesting characters, okay story. But the writing is far too spare and simple for my tastes. I prefer mysteries with atmosphere and complexity.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a nice little piece about Gulliver Dowd, a private detective, looking for the missing daughter of a high school girl firend of his. It has all the elements: a little person as a P. I., a tall Black man (a la Hawk from the Spenser series), a little romance. It's got suspense and you don't figure out the ending mid way through the story. In 130 pages Coleman does a great job in telling this story.

[romonko · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received this little book as an early reviewer read. I am not a big fan of rapid-read books. In fact, to me, the bigger the book, the better. This isn't a bad little book. It certainly has a different protagonist. Gulliver is a small-person and in spite of his size, he is a Private Investigator. We really didn't have the time to learn much about Gulliver becuase the book is so short. And most of the insight that we did get was about what it was like to live as a little-person in a big person's world. There wasn't much mystery here either. Gulliver is hired by his ex-high school sweetheart to find her 16 year old daughter. He does find her at the end but he also learns a hard life-lesson as he deals with his ex-girlfriend. If a little book like this one with a bit of action in it can get some people to read, then these books do serve as a valuable tool. I don't care for the format, but I'm a voracious reader and don't need any excuse to sit down and enjoy a book.

[delta61 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Dirty Work is a Rapid Read I obtained from LibraryThing. It is a well-known tale of a detective searching for a missing runaway who turns out to be his daughter. The back cover told me it was an adult fiction, verified by the use of the F word and sex scenes. I thought it was something made up for a reluctant reader. There are a number of two, three, four, and five word sentences. I thought these sentences better suited to a list than a paragraph. I did not complete the book.

[scrabblenut · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The premise of Dirty Work caught my attention: a private investigator is asked to look for a missing girl, who turns out to be his own daughter that he never knew he had, the product of a two-month relationship in high school. The private investigator is a unique character, a "little person" with a huge chip on his shoulder because of people's reaction to his stature. Unfortunately I did not find him likeable or particularly believable, and that diminished my interest in the story considerably. I do realize that the Rapid Reads series is designed to be short in length and with limited vocabulary, and have enjoyed other books in the series written by some of my favourite mystery writers. However, Dirty Work did not do it for me. It was too hard-boiled and included some unnecessary crudeness. The only character who came across as human was a Mafia boss!

[readerbynight · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a great new character in this Rapid Reads book. These books, or those who may not know, are complete stories that can read in a long commute (not driving LOL.) This one grabbed me right away, with its physically flawed hero. PI Gulliver Dowd's honest toughness reminds me somewhat of a Humphrey Bogart type of PI. I loved this quick read very much; from the strength of character, his honesty, his heartbreak, and his genuine outlook on the hand he has been dealt. Searching for a missing teen, all these traits come to the fore. Gullie, as his friends refer to him, is a character I would definitely like to read about again. The storyline was tight, characters deftly written. I would love to read a Gulliver Dowd series, hopefully it will be in the works. Great read!Note: I know this isn't usual, but my husband Dennis Gelean insists that I include his comment that he was pleasantly surprised by the book and recommends it as one he enjoyed very much.

[tarmina_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well, this certainly was a rapid read. I read it in an hour. Reminds me of the film noir genre, I guess you could call it a livre noir. Gulliver Dowd is a vertically challenged, hard boiled but handsome private detective who is manipulated into looking for a young runaway and doesnt stop until he finds her. In 129 pages the author manages to paint a decent picture of Gulliver and his friends, his past and his character. I liked him. I would be interested in reading other books in the series.