The Dick

310 pages. Octavo (8 1/2" x 6") bound in original publisher's beige cloth with brown lettering to spine and initials to cover in original pictorial jacket. First edition. A pencil-pushing policeman becomes a badass sleuth in this off-the-wall detective story from one of America's funniest writers. Kenneth LePeters (née Sussman) is a "quasi-dick." A public relations man for homicide bureaus, he carries a half-size badge and keeps his pearl-handled Smith & Wesson .38 locked in his desk drawer. Recently returned to the East Coast after 17 years in America's heartland, he finds the cosmopolitan air of a big-city police department refreshing—the detectives treat him almost like a real member of the homicide family. Then everything goes horribly wrong. A zoning quirk of their new neighborhood forces the LePeters's 10-year-old daughter, Jamie, to go to the worst school in town. Blaming her husband, Claire LePeters starts an affair with Detective Chico, a cop turned underground filmmaker. To make matters worse, when his colleagues discover that LePeters is Jewish, their bonhomie dries up as fast as a false lead. To reclaim his manhood and get his family back, LePeters must become the full-fledged dick he never thought he could be. Bruce Jay Friedman's twisted take on the cop novel is a hilarious, mordant, and wildly inventive portrait of a man daring to succeed in a world that has always expected him to fail. Condition: Jacket lightly soiled, corners rubbed, spine head chipped with closed tears.