The Prince of Leroy

When two small-time hoods execute a drug heist for their boss but decide to keep some of the take, trouble erupts. Stubb Malley’s Thornton mob, the Dalco east-coast crime syndicate, an Insurance Company president and College Dean, a High School Superintendent, a nervous rookie on the local police force, the manager of the swanky Voyageur’s End, an elderly woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens, the giant Deed and his best friend, the ever-talking Dom, an eccentric university professor, a carpet salesman, a dog named Angus, and a host of others, all become involved—kidnapping, murder, mayhem and philosophical enquiry ensue. Welcome to the world of The Prince of Leroy. From the dregs of society to its most intellectual sophisticates, from the halls of Thornton University to historic World War One tunnels that snake beneath the local nether-regions, The Prince of Leroy is a rousing, comic tale of action and adventure. Often bordering on Menippean satire, the narrative explores sundry layers of society and involves a panoply of complex contemporary themes and issues: can individuals ever achieve justice against overwhelming forces in matters that range from the illegal appropriation of land to the brutality of sexual rape; what kind of hero can an individual become in a world where lines of morality and acceptable conduct are irrevocably blurred, if or when those lines exist at all? Or what of Dom’s dream of death from which he emerges with an inherently existential question—how do you wake from being dead?

Welcome to the world of The Prince of Leroy, a boisterous, comic tale of action and adventure. When two small-time hoods execute a drug heist for their boss but decide to keep some of the take, trouble erupts like a summer storm; kidnapping, murder and mayhem ensue. And a bit of philosophizing too. Most of the novel takes place around the old Le Roi Motor Inn, the motel simply known to locals as the Leroy. Managed by a local god of good deeds and mythic reputation, John P. March, the Prince of Leroy, is quickly tasked to set his world in order—the question, to what lengths and depths will he allow himself to be drawn to sort through the sordid chaos and bring events to a settled and peaceful conclusion?