Book Review - Finding Flipper Frank

Finding Flipper Frank

By: Patrick M. Garry
Publisher: Kenric Books
Publication Date: August 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9833703-3-8
Reviewed by: Diane Lunsford
Review Date: October 14, 2014

Patrick M. Garry spins a deliciously delightful tale that teeters between the conflict of too many regrets and its adversarial prospect of hope and new beginnings in his latest novel Finding Flipper Frank.

Walt Honerman’s life hadn’t always been a routine that didn’t reach much beyond three squares a day. After prison, however, he never thought he’d leave his native Baltimore and end up in Oakdale, Montana. His Uncle Henry had a lot to do with the latter part of that statement. Henry moved to Montana seven years before and convinced Walt to do the same. He could use his apartment now that Henry’s new residence was the Oakdale Nursing Home. Walt didn’t have much vision or purpose and Uncle Henry’s proposition convinced him to travel west and spend his final years keeping him company. Walt got a job, construction, and built a reputation for being quite crafty and handy at his trade. Uncle Henry was the last living blood relative Walt had—this is until he found himself taking care of his funeral arrangements.

For a time leading up to his passing, Henry worked Walt relentlessly until he extracted his promise to return to Baltimore for the great Cal Ripkin’s final game. It wasn’t long after the promise was made that Henry passed quietly. What Walt hadn’t bargained for was company during the promised road trip back east. There was an eclectic gathering of friends at the funeral who were not only there to pay their final respects to Henry, but support Walt; the nephew they’d all grown quite fond of. Henry also knew a few peculiar sorts—Izzy Dunleavey, for starters. It seemed he had plans to travel back east to resurrect his grandiose resort nestled by the sea in Crawfish Bay, Maryland. The last thing Walt needed was an eccentric and somewhat curmudgeonly old guy by his side for the 2,000 mile trek across the country. When Moira Kelly approaches Walt for passage east, maybe her purpose is to act as the buffer between the two as much as it is Walt’s destiny.

Patrick M. Garry has penned an intriguing story. He has intricately developed three utterly mismatched personalities and mastered the harmony of their characters when developed across the pages. Situations during their road trip from the mighty Montanan west to the salty Baltimore shoreline left this reader laughing in one moment and holding my heart in the next. I found myself connecting most with Walt Honerman. In many respects, Mr. Garry has chosen him to be a man likened to damaged goods. Honerman goes to prison a young, college graduate and exits a grown man. The secondary roles assigned to Moira and Izzy are the temperance to Honerman’s unshakable guilt. Mr. Garry easily manages to tug at the reader’s heartstrings as much as he is able to exasperate the reader through strategically placed prose. The delicate balance between both premises throughout this book is yummy! I praise Patrick Garry for his accomplishment of writing an easy-to-read, fast-paced and without question, delightful story. It is abundantly clear Mr. Garry is fully equipped with the necessary tools of what it takes to spin a good read. Bravo! I look forward to your next novel.

Quill says: Road Trips are the backbone of Americana. Finding Flipper Frank is one road trip that lingers on in memory long after the last page has been turned.

For more information on Finding Flipper Frank, please visit the author's website at: http://patrickgarry.com/books/finding-flipper-frank/

Books In For Review

Here's a quick peek at some of the books that have just arrived for review.  Check them out!




The Calories In, Calories Out Cookbook: 200 Everyday Recipes That Take the Guesswork Out of Counting Calories - Plus, the Exercise It Takes to Burn Them Off by Catherine Jones You know that balancing the calories you take in and burn off is the foundation of weight control. But actually achieving that balance between eating and exercise is a daily challenge for most of us. Now, The Calories In, Calories Out Cookbook provides a fresh, sane approach for everyone seeking good health—and great food. Here is an essential repertoire of 200 smart recipes—nutrient-rich, delicious, foolproof, and ideal for busy individuals and families. Every recipe tells you its calorie count—and also tells you how many minutes of walking or jogging it takes for a woman or man to burn those calories off, so you’ll be able to visualize what calories mean as never before. All the recipes are below 400 calories per serving—and most are below 200!  

Chuck It by Knut Hansen A dark and humorous anti-hero novel spanning an approximately 380 pages, magnifying the mythical otherness across the Atlantic, one way or the other, and exploring juvenile exuberance elongated by past and future dreams of those who've set sails and those who yet haven't.  

The Paris Winter by Imogen Robertson Maud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. It took all her courage to escape, but Paris, she quickly realizes, is no place for a light purse. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling decadence of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie. Maud is overjoyed by her good fortune. With a clean room, hot meals, and an umbrella to keep her dry, she is able to hold her head high as she strolls the streets of Montmartre. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art. But all is not as it seems. Christian and Sylvie, Maud soon discovers, are not quite the darlings they pretend to be. Sylvie has a secret addiction to opium and Christian has an ominous air of intrigue. As this dark and powerful tale progresses, Maud is drawn further into the Morels' world of elegant deception. Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light.  

Finding Flipper Frank by Patrick M. Garry Walt Honerman has just about given up on life. He is thirty-eight years old and lives in a small apartment above a hardware store in Billings, Montana. But because of a promise made to a dying uncle, Walt embarks on a cross-country driving trip with two passengers : Moira Kelly, a young woman who had befriended Walt's uncle during his recent hospitalization; and 76-year old Izzy Dunleavy, a loquacious nursing home resident who wishes to return to his hometown of Crawfish Bay, Maryland. During their trip, Izzy entertains Walt and Moira with elaborate tales of the grand resort that he once owned in Crawfish Bay-a resort with a mythical reputation for being a place of good luck. But when they arrive in Crawfish Bay, a suddenly confused Izzy is arrested on a decades-old embezzlement charge. After Moira insists on staying to help Izzy, she and Walt discover that most of Izzy's stories are pure fiction. More discoveries occur when they meet Felix, Izzy's former business partner, and Emily, a singe mother who worked at the nursing home in Billings and who came to Crawfish Bay because of Izzy's promise of a job at his fictional resort. This mismatched group, thrown together as much by anger as by nostalgic affection, begins investigating the money Izzy supposedly embezzled when he disappeared from Crawfish Bay years ago. And despite his retreat from life, brought on by a past tragedy, Walt gets pulled into the wake of wild dreamers.  

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein In the summer of 1990, fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell gets his first glimpse of Riddell House. Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant whole trees and is set on a huge estate overlooking Seattle’s Puget Sound. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with his sister, Serena, dispatch the ailing and elderly Grandpa Samuel to a nursing home, sell off the house and property for development, divide up the profits, and live happily ever after. But as Trevor explores the house’s secret stairways and hidden rooms, he discovers a spirit lingering in Riddell House whose agenda is at odds with the family plan. Only Trevor’s willingness to face the dark past of his forefathers will reveal the key to his family’s future.  

What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age by Renée Rosen The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night. Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation. But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893.