THE TEXAS TWIST follows the (continuing) adventures of world-class con artist Radar Hoverlander and his band of merry misfits as they set out (this time) to answer the pressing question, “What happens when a con man gets conned?” Like all my books, it’s a fast, funny, easy read with engaging characters, plot twists up the wazoon, and lots of interesting made-up words (like wazoon). Here’s a taste:

Vic walked to the others and drew them in close, conspiratorial. “Now look,” he said, “this guy Radar Hoverlander is a little twitchy, right? Off the charts brilliant, but totally paranoid. So be cool with him. He’s taken a lot of heat for his ideas, as you can imagine, and he won’t naturally believe that you trust him.”

“What makes you think we do?” asked Allie, her voice intentionally sounding like honey spiked with bees. The mark, meanwhile, looked on agog — just as he was intended to.

“You’ve seen the prospectus,” said Vic. “You’ve seen the computer models.”

“I once saw a monkey play Mozart,” said Allie. “Doesn’t mean I’m sending it to Juilliard.”
If this sort of sneaky, snarky world appeals to you, I promise you’ll have great fun with THE TEXAS TWIST and/or with the guest blog post or author interview I’ll be happy to provide. Just send up a signal flare and I’ll respond within nanoseconds, by having my publisher send you a review copy (e- or dead tree-) and/or doing that guest post/author interview thingie. Just say, “Boy, howdy, JV, that sounds great,” and we can start making common cause.

THE TEXAS TWIST streets in June from Prospect Park Books. I’m standing by now to meet all of your review/interview/guest post needs at the drop of the merest request. You’ll find more about me, my bona fides, and my twisted history at johnvorhaus.com, and you’ll find the book’s full boilerplate below.

MONEY IS JUST HOW YOU KEEP SCORE

For world-class con artist Radar Hoverlander and his gang of gifted grifters, making money has never been much of a problem. If anything, the game has gotten too good – and taking candy from babies is starting to wear thin. Besides, there are other things to think about. Allie Quinn, Radar’s girlfriend and key con partner, is pregnant, and his quirky sidekick, Vic Mirplo, has decided to write a tell-all exposé about life on the razzle. But “life is what happens while you’re making other plans,” and before they know it, Radar and the crew find themselves defending a cute, sexy neighbor against the advances of a scam artist selling fake medical miracles. It’s when they discover who the scammer’s real target that things take a real turn for the weird.
Readers of The California Roll and The Albuquerque Turkey know what to expect from a Radar Hoverlander adventure: deft prose, rampant laughs, taut plotting, and enough twists and turns to make the head explode. Climb aboard – the double-cross express is about to get underway!
Goodreads author

twitter username @TrueFactBarFact

Amazon author page

John Vorhaus is known to one and all as the man who brought Radar Hoverlander – con artist extraordinaire – to life in the “sunshine noir” mystery novel, The California Roll, and its acclaimed sequel, The Albuquerque Turkey.

John is also well known as the author of The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not, and its acclaimed sequel, The Little Book of SITCOM, which continue to be definitive sources of information and inspiration for writers from Santa Monica to Scandinavia.

An international consultant in television and film script development, Vorhaus has worked for television networks, film schools, production companies and film funding bodies in 28 countries on four continents. He recently worked in Bulgaria, recruiting and training writers for that country’s adaptation of Married… with Children, and in Tel Aviv, consulting on the Israeli version of The Golden Girls. He also travels regularly to Nicaragua, where he co-created the social action drama Contracorriente to provide positive role modeling for the poor, young and disenfranchised of that embattled country.

And oh by the way, he has written more than three million words on poker, just in his spare time.

Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He has taught at such institutions as Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension. He is the author of a dozen books, including Creativity Rules! A Writer’s Workbook, the novel Under the Gun, the Killer Poker series and, with Annie Duke, the bestselling Decide to Play Great Poker.

He sells everything but his soul through his Amazon author page,
http://tinyurl.com/jvauthorpageamazon, tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact, and secretly rules the world from www.johnvorhaus.com.

The Albuquerque Turkey
by John Vorhaus

After their last big con netted them a nice chunk of change, Radar Hoverlander and his grifter girlfriend, Allie Quinn, have vowed to go straight. But Radar’s fragile commitment to clean living is put to the test when an oddly hefty lady in red shows up and stalks him through the streets of Santa Fe. Except that’s no lady—it’s Radar’s dad, Woody Hoverlander, a world class con artist in his own right.

Radar correctly figures if his dad is in drag, he must be in trouble. Woody is on the lam, with a Vegas hard guy after him and a large debt to clear. To help him, Radar must break his vow to leave cons behind—and risk losing Allie, who is determined to protect their nest egg and steer clear of bad influences.

The California Roll
by John Vorhaus

What do the Merlin Game, the Penny Skim, the Doolally Snadoodle, and the Afterparty Snuke have in common? They’re all the work of world-class con artist and master bafflegabber Radar Hoverlander. Radar’s been “on the snuke” since childhood, but he’s still looking for his California Roll, the one big scam that’ll set him up in sushi for life.

Trouble arrives in the stunning, sassy package of Allie Quinn—either the last true innocent or a con artist so slick she makes Radar look like a Quaker. Radar’s hapless sidekick, Vic Mirplo, a lovable loser who couldn’t con a kid out of a candy cane, thinks Radar’s being played. But if love is blind, it’s also deaf, dumb and stupid, and before Radar knows it, he’s sucked into a vortex of double-, triple-, quadruple-crosses that’ll either net him his precious California Roll or put him in a hole in the ground.

As timeless as a perpetual-motion machine, as timely as a Madoff arraignment, The California Roll brings you deep inside the world of con artistry, where every fact is fiction and the second liar never has a chance.