{"id":17945,"date":"2023-03-09T20:05:59","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T01:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17945"},"modified":"2023-03-09T20:05:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T01:05:59","slug":"city-of-beads-by-tony-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17945","title":{"rendered":"‘City of Beads,’ by Tony Dunbar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tubby went into his own bedroom and checked the drawer in the little table by the bed to see if his own pistol was still there. It was, and he picked it up. It was an old and heavy gun, a Smith & Wesson .38. When you ordered shells for it at the gun store it was like ordering a double bourbon at a bar. People gave you respect because you were old.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The second Tubby DuBonnet book<\/strong> in Tony Dunbar\u2019s well-known series is City of Beads<\/a><\/em>. The city, of course, is Tubby\u2019s New Orleans home, where he practices law in a fairly desultory manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tubby is settling into the routine of practicing law on his own, after his partner betrayed him in the last book. He\u2019s upset to learn that an old friend, a man who made money exporting peanut oil for foreign aid programs, has been found dead in the hold of one of his own barges. But he didn\u2019t drown in the oil \u2013 it was murder. It\u2019s hard to figure out why anyone would kill the man, and Tubby promises the widow he\u2019ll poke around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, he\u2019s been retained by a local casino. The money\u2019s excellent, though they don\u2019t seem to have much real work for him to do. But he\u2019s enjoying the company of the beautiful blonde they appointed as his liaison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s another woman too, though \u2013 an attractive black woman who just happens to have committed a revenge killing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, one of Tubby\u2019s adult daughters is involved with an environmentalist group, investigating river pollution. Some people don\u2019t like the questions she and her friends are raising, and Tubby agrees to help out just to keep an eye on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m still not sure what to make of the Tubby DuBonnet books. At the end of the last one I decided I should approach them as dark comedy, but I didn\u2019t find City of Beads <\/em>all that funny. And the hero, though he\u2019s supposed to be pretty street smart, seems to me to survive as much on luck as on intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder if I\u2019d appreciate the books better if I\u2019d ever been to New Orleans\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tubby went into his own bedroom and checked the drawer in the little table by the bed to see if his own pistol was still there. It was, and he picked it up. It was an old and heavy gun, a Smith & Wesson .38. When you ordered shells for it at the gun store … Continue reading ‘City of Beads,’ by Tony Dunbar<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4598,4560,4561],"class_list":["post-17945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-city-of-beads","tag-tony-dunbar","tag-tubby-dubonnet"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17945"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17947,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945\/revisions\/17947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}