Going Nowhere Fast

Joe and Dottie Loudermilk are all set for the perfect early retirement. Joe's an ex-cop, and Dottie's a former English teacher, and as soon as the ''SOLD'' sign goes up on the lawn in front of their longtime Los Angeles home, they intend to take their brand new Ford pickup truck and Airstream trailer wherever the great American highway leads. Unfortunately, fate is determined to have two forms of trouble dog their every step: murder and their five incorrigible grown children. In Dottie's own words, the Loudermilk brood ''go to school, but take pains not to learn anything remotely useful; date weird people and adhere to Mickey Mouse religions...And give birth to grandchildren from hell (whom they raise) like goldfish won at a church carnival.'' In this introductory adventure, Joe and Dottie visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where they're immediately confronted by a corpse in their bathroom, the FBI, an All-Pro lineman from the Los Angeles Raiders---and most frightening of all, their reprehensible son Bad Dog. Both lovers of the offbeat cozy, and parents who know the misery of wayward children, have declared the Loudermilk adventures an hilarious and, to quote The New York Times, ''credibly sentimental'' treat. From the author of the award-winning Aaron Gunner detective series comes an all-new mystery featuring an unlikely pair of gumshoes. Joe and Dottie Loudermilk seem to have it all. Joe, a recently retired police detective, and his wife, Dottie, have chucked the house and the yard and have hit the road in their newly acquired Airstream trailer, choosing to see America mile by incredible mile. As parents of five grown children, each one a pain in the derriere, they're only too happy to leave them and their problems in the dust. But while visiting the Grand Canyon, Joe and Dottie return to their silver home on wheels to discover their youngest son, Bad Dog, hiding in the closet with a gun in his hand - and a dead man on the toilet. And while Joe and Dottie are in the clear, they find themselves crisscrossing the Arizona desert in search of the killer, with the FBI, the National Park Service, the L.A. Raiders, and the mob on their heels. Wry, engaging, and deliciously loopy, Going Nowhere Fast marks the debut of a marvelously entertaining sleuthing duo from the pen of one of today's most talented writers of crime fiction.