Thomas Kaufman is a winner of the PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Competition. His debut novel, Drink the Tea, which boasts an original PI and an engaging cast of characters, adds a fresh perspective to the genre.
DRINK THE TEA
Willis Gidney is a born liar and rip-off artist, an expert at the scam. Growing up without parents or a home, by age twelve he is a successful young man, running his own small empire, until he meets Shadrack Davies. That’s Captain Shadrack Davies, of the D.C. Police. Davies wants to reform Gidney and becomes his foster father. Though he tries not to, Gidney learns a small amount of ethics from Shad---just enough to bother a kid from the streets for the rest of his life.
Now Gidney is a PI, walking those same streets. So it's no surprise that when his closest friend, jazz saxophonist Steps Jackson, asks Gidney to find his missing daughter, Gidney is compelled to say yes---even though she's been missing for twenty-five years. He finds a woman who may be the girl’s mother--and within hours she turns up dead. The police accuse Gidney of the murder and throw him in jail.
Maybe Gidney should quit while he’s behind. But when his investigation puts him up against a ruthless multinational corporation, a two-faced congressman, and a young woman desperate to conceal her past, Gidney has no time left for second thoughts. In fact, he may have no time left at all.
A unique hero, a quirky cast, and a riveting mystery make Steal the Show a winner.
George Pelecanos calls Thomas Kaufman "a welcome new voice in Washington, D.C., crime fiction."
Willis Gidney needs money because he's found a girl.
No, no, not that kind of girl. This is an abandoned baby girl. Gidney found her on a case. So he hands the girl to the cops, right?
Wrong, because Gidney started life the same way—-abandoned. He knows all about D.C.'s juvenile-justice system, having barely survived it himself. That makes it hard to give up the girl. Too bad that unmarried private eyes aren't usually thought of as ideal parents. So now Gidney needs a lawyer, and that means money.
Enter Rush Gemelli, a code-writing hacker who pays Gidney to commit a felony. Just a small one. Nothing serious, really, but you know how these things can snowball. Gidney thinks this is a onetime venture, but Gemelli has other ideas. He blackmails Gidney into joining up with his father, Chuck, the head of the motion picture lobby in D.C. And when Chuck's former partner is murdered, it looks like someone may be playing Gidney.
Add to that the unwanted attentions of a crazed actress, the D.C. case worker from hell, and the Vietnamese and Salvadoran gangs out to kill him, and it's all Gidney can do to keep from getting his movie ticket punched—permanently.
