Glen and Stan Books
A disbarred lawyer and an ex-arsonist cross paths and find themselves organizing an elaborate real estate scam to bilk a shady rich speculator out of twenty million dollars. The sting is personal for ex-arsonist Stan and for a woman named Vee, who plays an essential role in the caper. Glen, the narrator and former lawyer, finds himself at first just along for the money. Eventually, as bonds deepen among the conspirators, Glen too discovers he has a lot more at stake than simply the loot. This cast of lively eccentrics discovers along the way that getting to the big payoff might just be more scary fun than the monetary prize itself.
Glen and Stan, the Odd Couple of scamdom, are back from their Big Get-Even adventure with another get-rich-quick-or-go-down-in-flames scheme. As part of their trafficking in counterfeit merch, they are looking to turn a few pallets of Grade Z computer chips into some military hardware sure to interest dictators and despots and drug lords around the globe. Bankrolled by a greedy local crime boss, they hope to promote a half-genius, half-addlepated invention from a naive and principled inventor into a bonanza. But no one ever counts on complications arising from a wayward wife, some sexy Eurotrash go-betweens, and a lonely entrepreneurial girlfriend who finds her native tropical isle conducive to a troublesome loosening of morals. Add in a most unconventional explosives expert, and you have a caper half hilarious, half deadly, and 100 percent entertaining.
Perpetual scam artists Glen and Stan find themselves with a million-dollar stake after their last exploit. Of course, this money must be invested to provide for their future. Why? Because the boys must now go straight. Their notoriety from previous adventures now makes it impossible for them to continue as scammers. The trouble is, they can’t agree on an investment. Stan impulsively dumps his half of the money into Elysian Pavilion, a drug-and-alcohol rehab house. He wants Glen to do the same, but Glen wants to open a trendy mezcal bar. An impassable roadblock looms before Glen in the form of the state’s chief liquor distributor, Oskar Stoltz, and his scary flunky, Doug McClatchy. Stoltz hates mezcal and won’t carry it. Glen’s plan seems permanently stymied . . . until he meets three vital people: Trevor Yorn, young rich trustafarian with a handy venue to host parties. Araceli Zavala, a young Mexican-American woman with mythic resonance. And Fulgencio Pérez, Araceli’s visiting uncle from Mexican, who happens to be a maestro mezcalero, distiller supreme. All the pieces fall into place for a boutique mezcal distillery and a weekly rave, by which Glen will fulfill his dreams and get rich. But the enmity of Stoltz and McClatchy has not abated. Danger, death, and destruction lie in the shadows—leading inexorably toward a final, apocalyptic confrontation!