Mon 21 May 2018
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: TONY DUNBAR – Crooked Man.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
TONY DUNBAR – Crooked Man. [Tubby Dubonnet #1.] G.P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1994. Berkley, paperback, 1996.
This came out back in January [of 1994], and I missed it completely. I don’t believe I ever even saw a copy. Dunbar us a New Orleans lawyer, and has written four non-fiction books; this is his first novel.
Tubby Dubonnet is a successful though not overly affluent New Orleans lawyer who has an ex-wife, three daughters, and a varied and odd group of clients. Among them are a doctor who refers his own malpractice patient to Tubby, a flamboyant wrecker operator who has problems with insurance, a buxom blonde who doesn’t pay bills, and a club owner who deals in a few drugs.
The latter is the one who, as you might suspect, is destined to cause him major problems. Before it’s over Tubby has run afoul of crooked cops and rich drug bankrollers, and seen more dead bodies than he wanted to.
I enjoyed this. Dunbar knows New Orleans, and while he doesn’t overpower you with atmosphere, the city definitely comes alive. The prose is low key and straightforward, and the characters are interesting. Dunbar tells the story effectively through shifting third-person viewpoints, though Tubby is the predominant focus.
It isn’t and doesn’t attempt to be a Big Novel, but it is a well told story about some engaging and mostly amiable characters. I liked them, and I wouldn’t mind seeing some more of Tubby and the Big Easy.
The Tubby Dubonnet series —
1. Crooked Man (1994)
2. City of Beads (1996)
3. Trick Question (1997)
4. Shelter from the Storm (1997)
5. The Crime Czar (1998)
6. Lucky Man (1999)
7. Tubby Meets Katrina (2005)
8. Night Watchman (2015)
9. Fat Man Blues (2016)
10. Flag Boy (2017)
May 21st, 2018 at 7:23 pm
Sounds slightly in the screwball vein, which I’m a sucker for.
May 21st, 2018 at 8:00 pm
Slightly screwball, perhaps, but I read one of the early books in the series and don’t remember it being all that wacky.
But the again, neither do I remember it not being wacky.
It’s interesting to note that between 1999 and 2015 there was only one book, and now one in each of the past three years.
May 22nd, 2018 at 5:58 am
Glad to see there is another Tubby Dubonnet book (#10), as I’d missed it. SHELTER FROM THE STORM – about a hurricane that hits New Orleans, written nearly a decade before Katrina – is a memorable one, probably even moreso than TUBBY MEETS KATRINA. I bogged down in the middle of #8, but will get back to it.
A few have “wacky” elements, but it’s mostly Tubby and the food and atmosphere of The Big Easy that make them so readable, plus they are nice and short compared with so many books today.
May 25th, 2018 at 10:08 am
I haven’t read any Tubby books, but I have a few on my shelves. Since we’re going to New Orleans in November, I’ll have to give these a try.