Shoot the Moon

by Joseph T. Klempner

Book Overview

Michael Goodman, mild-mannered accountant, father and widower, is about to change his ways after having spent all his life in the Comfort Zone. It starts when he changes a flat tyre on his hired car -... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312154240
• ISBN13: 9780312154240
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 341 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Clever story premise. Interesting main character. Good read.

This book was fun. Great story that grabs you early on. Sympathetic main character that is an "everyman" one can easily identify with. Well-written. Author seems to have a knowledge of police procedures without needlessly "showing-off" that knowledge - information is only described as necessary for the story. Police are probably depicted as dumber than they are, but hey, what do I know? Maybe this *is* close to mark -- if so, we should be worried. Nice depiction of a father-daughter relationship that you dont always see in novels of this kind.

Kirkus Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews , June 15, 1997 Think it would be fun to be sitting on top of something worth a cool $5 million? Not when the something is primo heroin....Readers who root for the good guys will enjoy the special challenge posed by Goodman, too nice to do time for dealing (so he can't be caught) but too principled to make a killing from selling heroin (so he can't get away).-- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Synopsis

From Booklist , August 19, 1997

Following on the heels of his well-received first novel, Felony Murder (1995), Klempner has scored another success. Michael Goodman is an out-of-work accountant, trying to single-handedly support a seriously ill daughter after the death of his wife. On a journey from New York to Fort Lauderdale for a disastrous job interview, he discovers millions of dollars worth of drugs in the trunk of his rental car. Being a basically honest guy, he tries to turn them over to the police, but they keep rebuffing him. With mounting medical bills in mind, he succumbs to temptation and takes the drugs home. He is not any better selling the drugs than he was in his interview, and he rapidly falls under the scrutiny of multiple law-enforcement and criminal organizations. All of them see him as their chance for a big score. Klempner's style is both engaging and humorous, and he maintains a skillful level of suspense throughout the story. Big fun. Eric Robbins Copyright© 1997, American Library Association. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

From Kirkus Reviews , 06/15/97 Think it would be fun to be sitting on top of something worth a cool $5 million? Not when the something is primo heroin. The heroin came with the pink Camry Michael Goodman rented in Fort Lauderdale--not the Camry designated for him, of course, but one that had been reserved for (ahem) somebody else. And he'd be perfectly willing to turn it in to the cops--he takes considerable trouble to do so--if only they wouldn't make it so hard, and he weren't running out of money (he's an unemployed bookkeeper), and his six-year-old daughter Kelly hadn't come down with a worrisome series of headaches that have sent her into the hospital for ever more dire tests. So when Goodman heads back to New York, it's with two duffel bags full of dynamite H and an enemies list that includes (1) the Florida hoods he inadvertently ripped off; (2) the NYPD; and (3) the DEA. Luckily, he's protected by Kelly, a stray cat, and Carmen Pacelli, a street- savvy prostitut! e who turns up on his doorstep. In other words, Goodman, as his name suggests, is armored with nothing but shining innocence. In particular, he's cast as a blissfully ignorant Road Runner to the canny authorities, whose armory of high-tech entrapment gear (phone taps, room bugs, a formidably equipped mobile unit) and eagerness to break every rule in the book to bust him keep getting torpedoed by their escalating incompetence, as if all that technology had been provided by the same Acme Co. that's been supplying Wile E. Coyote all these years. Readers who root for the good guys will enjoy the special challenge posed by Goodman, too nice to do time for dealing (so he can't be caught) but too principled to make a killing from selling heroin (so he can't get away). Anybody who can overlook the just-for-my-sick-girl plea will enjoy watching Klempner (Felony Murder, 1995) rescue his hero as charmingly as Donald E. Westlake. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reser! ved.

I really liked this book.

I liked this book because it has a different twist on the thriller idea. The main character acts so believably that I really felt for his predicament. Read it!