Bamboo Books Series

Machine Gun Jelly is a cynical black comedy thriller, a golden thread of deception and imagination woven into a carpet of reality. A small time hustler and Tiger Woods lookalike named Monsoon Parker is compelled to borrow money from a vicious Vegas mobster, and is unable to pay the Vig. In desperation, he ransacks an old suitcase that belonged to his old man, who got greased in Vietnam. What he discovers, the titular Machine Gun Jelly, triggers a series of increasingly bizarre events, and entangles a picaresque cast of characters in a dangerous farce. Only one man knows what they are really dealing with, and he doesn't even know which planet he's on. Pretty soon, people start dying. The action moves from Las Vegas to Vietnam to Australia before coming to a chaotic and explosive conclusion. Machine Gun Jelly is the first installment of the Big Bamboo series, and introduces the principle characters, these being……. Asia Birdshadow. Smart, sassy and sexy as hell. Initially found working as a lady of the night in Las Vegas. She has all the tools for the job, but not enough flint in her soul to survive very long in that profession. Jordan 'Baby Joe' Young. A white knight in the black night. A middle aged hard as coffin nails ex Boston PD, Baby Joe makes his living extricating people from difficulties in Vegas. Not someone to be trifled with, but a complicated man who suffers from an excess of moral integrity. Not necessarily an advantage in the seas in which he swims. Crispin Capricorn. Outrageously flamboyant gay lounge singer. Talented, witty, acerbic, petulant, emotional, loving and loyal, Crispin is Asia's best friend. A gigantic heroic muffin man, who always stands by her and is not afraid to ante up when the chips are down. Monsoon Parker. Unrepentant sleazebag of the first order. Bears a remarkable resemblance to Tiger Woods. As reliable as a chocolate clock, Monsoon slimes his way through life, always on the lookout for the big score, without ever seeing the big picture. Monsoon is invariably the catalyst for catastrophe. The butthole from which emanates all the shit that goes down. These characters appear in all the Big Bamboo books. Except for the ones that get croaked, who are……..Dream on, pal.

At the conclusion of Machine Gun Jelly it looked like it was all going to be moonlight and roses from thereon in. Not so! Asia and Baby Joe are separating. What they had together, formed in the firecracker adrenalin of excitement and danger, can't handle the normality, and they're drifting apart, both sad but both knowing the score. Monsoon Parker is on the bones of his arse as usual, and Crispin is living the life of a caged parrot with all his feathers falling out. When Monsoon scores a gig as a celebrity lookalike golf caddie, not realizing that he's being set up, and Asia goes back to Louisiana to celebrate her mother's birthday, with Crispin on the team, things start to get lively. Enter a frustrated fading beauty who writes purple prose spy novels while moonlighting as a jewel thief who calls herself the Caramel Cougar, a hideous psychopathic Cossack gangster with a corkscrew dick, a spotty snotty off the clock IQ cyber nerd who thinks he's smarter than everyone else, a mythical thirteen inch Faberge diamond dildo called the Fab 13, a revolutionary toy called the R3 that will transform the entertainment industry, at least until it kills everyone who uses it because it's radioactive, and a pallid sicko ghoul looking vodun priest who wants revenge against Baby Joe for locking him into a suntan bed. Just like I said. All moonlight and roses!

The characters from Machine Gun Jelly and The Chameleon Fallacy ride again as they get caught in the crossfire in a vicious, malicious, and devious game of cut and thrust between a deranged megalomaniac billionaire who wants to destroy the Greenland ice cap, and a batshit doolally eco-valkyrie who wants to reforest Madagascar. Throw in a spectacularly inept secret agent, an extraordinarily disfunctional international agency, a piratical sea captain with a parrot that doesn´t know when to keep its beak shut, a beautiful but aloof genius, a rogue Chinese general with delusions of grandeur, and a panda that can play the piano, and you have a recipe for mayhem and confusion in spades. And as usual, it´s Monsoon Parker stirring up the gumbo, Asia Birdshadow adding the spice, Crispin Capricorn providng the music, and Baby Joe Young left to clean up after the shit hits the fan. Big Style!