All titles by
Doug J. Swanson
Agent
David R. Patterson
Umbrella Man
A Jack Flippo Mystery
Putnam, July 1999
The fourth in the Edgar Award-nominated and Golden Dagger Award-winning “Jack Flippo” series, pulls the sod back from the Grassy Knoll to uncover the truth about the Kennedy assassination.
Jack Flippo stumbles upon Marty Dufrain, the owner of a few frames of black-and-white film that just might show a second gunman firing at President Kennedy on that famous November day.
In the lee of the triple overpass, overshadowed by the schoolbook depository, squats the Grassy Knoll. It stood at the center of the Kennedy assassination as surely as it serves as the focus for all manner of crackpots and conspiracy theorists today. In his latest mess, Jack Flippo seems to have found his share of them. From Jack’s friends–a homicidal con artist making a buck off assassination re-creations in the “You-are-there JFK deathmobile”–to his enemies–an oxygen-dependent ex-killer and his cognitively challenged sons-in-law–Umbrella Man keeps Jack wondering which group he dreads most.
“Doug Swanson does Dallas the way Robert Parker does Boston–from the bottom up.” –Carl Hiaasen
“You definitely want to be in Dallas when Jack Flippo’s on a case.” –The New York Times
Reminding readers and critics alike of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard, Swanson is “the John Travolta of the comic caper: he makes it all look light and easy and seems to be having a great time too” (Kirkus Reviews).