An Occasional Hell (book)

From AwardAnnals

Book:	An Occasional Hell
Author:	Randall Silvis
Honors:	1993 Hammett nominee Score: 6.43
Genres:	Mystery/Suspense books
Publisher:	Permanent Press (NY)

P.I. Ernest DeWalt snooped on two-timing spouses for twenty years until a hail of bullets knocked him out of the game. Whoever heard of a sleuth with bum kidneys? Denied such staples of gumshoe life as booze, salty food, and sex, Ernest DeWalt winds up teaching literature courses in a nearly comatose college town.

It’s a life that the reclusive DeWalt has nevertheless snuggled into with reasonable comfort. Too bad fate won’t just let this disillusioned sleeping dog lie. Too bad a fellow faculty member—in the throes of a fling with the sexy waitress wife of a small-time rock singer—ends up with a musket ball in his brain. And too bad it’s so hard to say no to the dead man’s wife, when she asks DeWalt to crawl out of his shell and bring his private-eye prowess into play just one more time….