Happy Hour

by Don G. Porter

Description

Alaska bush pilot Alex Price was content with his day job flying between the villages of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, until an urgent call from his best friend, the elegant novice bar owner Renaldo, brought him into the city of Anchorage, and into danger. In the early 1970s, Alaska hovered on the edge of the Age of Big Oil. The state and its citizens were still collectively broke, but the smell of money was in the air--and like the smell of blood, it drew predators from far away. Renaldo had show more no patience with bagmen set to carry off his bar's profits, and sent them packing (and bleeding) instead; now his life was threatened, and he expected Alex to save the day, or at least find answers to a few important questions: Who were these guys offering "insurance"--or else--to the city's drinking establishments? Was Fairbanks the home base for their troubles, or was it maybe Moscow? And what could the good guys do about it? Then as now, Alaskans will try anything--as long as they don't have to sober up completely first. The embattled Anchorage barkeepers can't agree on much, but they pull together long enough to draft Alex as their own personal combination of Wyatt Earp and Sherlock Holmes. So now all he has to do is prevent Russia, or at least an outlaw offshoot of it, from reclaiming Alaska, or at least its drinking emporiums' earnings--and keep himself, Renaldo, and his colleagues alive and healthy in the process. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it, or die trying... Much of the enjoyment in this tale of merry mayhem and murder (with cocktails) stems from its underlying authenticity: author Don G. Porter knows his Alaska, from the bar scene of forty years' back to the ins and outs of piloting small planes over empty northern territory. show less

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pammykn 173 reviews

AUTHOR: Porter, Don G.
TITLE: Happy Hour
DATE READ: 06/09/14
RATING: 4/B
GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS: Crime Fiction/2005/McRoy & Blackburn/139 pgs
SERIES/STAND-ALONE: 1st in Alex Price series
TIME/PLACE: 1970's Alaska
CHARACTERS: Alex Price : bush pilot & private detective

FIRST LINES: "In another 5 minutes I'd have been out of radio range, but Vickie nailed me."
COMMENTS: It is before the big oil boom and Alaska is ripe for pioneers to settle down. The cities here are like any other… crime is rampant, only maybe still in the early stages of being more organized. Alex has a friend Renaldo who buys a bar at a fraction of the price it is worth. Renaldo is blinded by the low price and feels that is the true indicator of a good deal. show more Shortly after he opens he realizes that the price for running his business is much higher than expected. Every month a strange Russian man resembling Ed Asner visits for his $5,000 Insurance payment. For years the other bars have been paying for fear that there is a large Russian syndicate demanding the money. Renaldo calls in his friend Alex for assistance. I enjoyed the background story of Josef -- the Russian who basically worked on his own w/ only a few to do his leg work. The setting was definitely a draw, it was nice to read about Alaska in the 1970's and also the story line was better than expected. show less

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