Created by Percy Spurlark Parker
Las Vegas P.I. TREVOR OAKS only appeared once, in Percy Spurlark Parker’s 2009 novel, The Good-Looking Dead Guy.
Trevor’s a big guy, weighing in at somewhere around “two hundred and sixty pounds of black muscle,” which means the former University of Nevada Las Vegas football player can handle the occasional bodyguard job which comes his way.
In fact, that’s what he’s up to in his first appearance. He’s hired by Martin Gossinger, the husband/manager of a local porn star, Sinsa Saison, to keep an eye on her.
Shouldn’t be too difficult, he figures.
The “no prob” attitude doesn’t last long, though. Within a few hours, Martin is found dead in some Vegas fleabag, an apparent victim of a random robbery and plain bad luck, and Trevor is back to doing detective work–this time on behalf of Gossinger’s half-brother Sam Brownlee, who wants the killer found.
But as Trevor begin to poke into thing, he discovers there’s a long list of people who wouldn’t mind Gossinger assuming permanent room temperature, including several former business partners, maybe a few old (male) lovers, and possibly a 90-year old mob widow.
The Good-Looking Dead Guy didn’t reinvent the wheel, but like the author’s more well-known Big Bull Benson series, Parker delivers the real pulp goods, consistently hitting the mark.
Or almoist. Unfortunately, the book was self-published, and poorly edited, if it was edited at all, and is rife with so many typos and spelling and grammatical errors that every single review of it I’ve found mentions it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Percy Spurlark Parker is one of those guys who seems to have been in the Shamus Game for a long, long time. He was a member of the Mystery Writers of America for over 35 years, and a member of the Private Eye Writers of America since its inception. His first short stories appeared in the April 1972 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and over his long career he’s been  published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Woman’s World, and numerous anthologies. He’s also the author of  The Good Looking Dead Guy (2009) featuring private eye Trevor Oaks.
NOVELS
- The Good-Looking Dead Guy (2009)Â |Â Buy this book
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
