Larry Kent 645: The Heavenly Bodies

A Larry Kent, P. I. Thriller

By: Don Haring

Narrated by: Chaz Allen

Fred Wallis came to Davidson, California, with a big, crooked plan in mind. Then, he just...disappeared. Fred’s brother hired Larry Kent to go west and find out what had become of him - a job Larry was glad to accept, since Fred had been a childhood friend of his.

But the minute he started asking around, he became a target. Someone wanted Fred’s secret plan to remain just that. But who was behind the attempts on Larry’s life? Carl Esposito, the oily little manager of the Carousel Club? C. R. Partridge, whose bonhomie seemed too good to be true...or the enigmatic Johnathon Sebastian Everard, the Senior Elder of a mysterious cult known as Astral Quest, who believed that he was descended from aliens?

About Larry Kent

Larry Kent started his life as the hero of a half-hour radio show on Australia’s Macquarie Network and was inspired chiefly by the success of the hardboiled mysteries of Carter Brown. As the popularity of the radio show grew, the Cleveland Publishing Pty. Ltd decided to publish a series of Larry Kent novels. Two authors, Don Haring (an American who lived in Australia) and Des R Dunn (a Queenslander) are primarily associated with the series. Between 1954 and 1983, Larry appeared in well over 400 adventures.

Kent is a typical hard-boiled private eye. He smokes Camels, drinks whisky, and within the first part of a book, has usually met a dame and is fighting for his life. His mean streets are pure New York (although the radio series was set in Australia) and include Harlem nightclubs and Jersey roadhouses.

Generally, the body counts are high: about six deaths per novel. But there’s another side to Larry Kent. He’s a Vietnam war veteran, he used to work for the CIA and still does, usually reluctantly, on occasion. And once, when an attempt was made on his life, the agency paid for him to have plastic surgery that altered his appearance...something he never quite managed to get used to.

Larry Kent is fast and fun, and Piccadilly Publishing is proud to be bringing his cases to a whole new generation of fans.

©2019 David Whitehead (P)2021 David Whitehead