Hot Season

by John McMahon

When Lonny Doyle is paid by his boss to step out of his work-a-day life on Long Island and fly to Thailand in order to kill an 18 year old kid he's immediately out of his comfort zone. Lonny's never been abroad and he's never killed anyone.From the moment he touches down in Bangkok his mission is a shambles. His luggage never arrives. The hotel booked for him is a filthy throw back to the R and R days of the Vietnam war. His accomplice and should be guide is a twitchy bible thumper. The surveillance of his target is detected almost immediately by the boys local girlfriend, Toy, a beautiful, dangerous criminal with a scatter-shot personality and a love for all that is adorable. Lonny makes a poor assassin. He loses fights. He sweats a lot and calls his Ma from the international pay phones outside of 7/11 where he eats hot dogs while trying to negotiate his way through the alien city and the over all debacle he finds himself in as he's roped into a scheme to kidnap the very kid he's been sent to kill. The one exception to the oppressive heat, cat-like language and sudden beatings that plague Lonny's mission is the chance meeting he has with a young woman who finds him bleeding on the sky train and takes pity on him. Pearl is the first woman in a long time to offer Lonny some hope, but then he accidentally kills her for not being a woman.The ransom drop goes bad and Lonny ends up with the money. Now his only worries are escaping the country, Toy's goons, the Thai police and US embassy officials with his life and the ice cream freezer where he keeps Pearl's body, and the two plan their future together, more beautiful in frozen death than ever in life.

265 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 8, 2020