Four five-star Yelp reviews do you little good when you’re nailed inside a giant barrel of whiskey, which is where our intrepid private detective Barry finds himself while on the case to help his campy drag friends, all of whom have numerous secrets to hide. <br><br>If he can decide between the man he once loved and the bartender he’s falling for, successfully stay undercover as his alter-ego, Mary, Queen of Scotch, and keep one step ahead of the bad guys, plus a raucously funny meddling mom, he just might live to see that much-desired fifth review.

Mary, Queen of Scotch

Pearl, now Tom, raised his gun Luna’s way. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up. All of you.” He looked scared and sounded the same. He was a drug dealer. They were all drug dealers. They weren’t murderers. So, yeah, he was scared. So was Lester. I could see it in his eyes, too. Scared was good—for us, I mean. Scared meant that we had a chance of escape. People fucked up when they were scared. Heck, Auntie and Pearl could barely make it through a Madonna song without fucking it up. And this went way beyond a middling lip-sync.


“The police know I’m here,” I said. “They know I’m working this case. I sent them a message that, if I don’t come home, they should look for me here.” I already had a plan formulating when I said this. A good detective needs to be a few steps ahead. I was lucky to be two, right about then, but two was, hopefully, all we’d need.


Chapter 77