The Hard Karma Shuffle

Paladin #1

by Mike Nettleton, Carolyn J. Rose

The Hard Karma Shuffle is hit-the-floor-running entertainment from the first page to the last.the kind of fun you used to find only in the movies. It's Paladin vs. the bad guys -- including his loveable, cynical self

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Mike Nettleton, author of Shotgun Start and co-author of The Big Grabowski and Sometimes a Great Commotion, grew up in Bandon and Grants Pass, Oregon.
A stint at a college station in Ashland led to a multi-state radio odyssey with on-air gigs in Oregon, California, and New Mexico under the air name Mike Phillips. In 1989 he returned to the Northwest and in 1994 joined KEX Radio in Portland. Recently retired, hobbies are golf, pool, Texas hold-em poker, and book collecting. Most recently he’s turned DRUM WARRIOR (Formerly THE HERMIT OF HUMBUG MOUNTAIN) into a screenplay and is busy honing his Academy Awards speech. Or, failing that an acceptance speech for the Ridley Garboon National self-delusion awards to be announced this fall.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you thought all the “hippies” traded in their nonconformance and antiestablishment ideas to become solid citizens working 9 to 5 and storing up stock options, you haven’t read this book. Paladin is an old hippy who is quite happy with is life style. He barely gets by and sometimes doesn’t get enough to eat, but he is happy. While others may have sold out to the establishment, he still refuses. He provides an “as needed” messenger service for a lawyer friend which usually nets him some extra cash. When he discovers the lawyer dead, he becomes the prime suspect and that starts the wheels in motion that takes his life in some very unexpected directions.

This was a very different, but very enjoyable mystery. It is rich with information and references to the 60’s and to the “hippy movement” of that time. I lived through the 60’s. Although I was too busy studying and trying to stay in college to pay much attention to the counter-culture, you couldn’t live through the 60’s without being somewhat touched and changed by it.

The authors score wins on two fronts. First, the writing, plot, and character development are very good. Second, the feel of the 60’s comes through the memories, thoughts and ideas of Paladin in a very real way. He is the embodiment of what a surviving hippy would be like today. The mystery he steps into is believable. Even the fact that some of his old hippy pals have become materialistic capitalists is also very real. That happened to some very well known former hippies.

This was a very nice change of pace mystery. The setting and the characters are not what one normally expects in a mystery. I liked it. I also enjoyed the trip down memory lane. Even if you weren’t alive during the 60’s I think you will find this book interesting reading and a good mystery.