traven collins is
the 'The Zen Detective' by Colin Talbot was first published in a very limited sense in 1996 by Redback Books, a division of Bookman Press, in Melbourne, Australia.
THE ZEN DETECTIVE
When a
detective not a detective. . .
the one sentence description:
A downbeat publicist in a downbeat suburb
searches for a missing girl, and everybody
finds themselves.
The Story:
Somewhere in the inner city now, Traven Collins is a freelance publicist living on the poverty line. He can't pay the rent on his office atop an old factory.
So, he'll take any job that is on offer.
When a rich publisher, Robert Plenty, employs
Collins to search for a missing woman.
sinister coincidences begin to occur.
First there is a stranger who turns up at the office
with a case of amnesia, then promptly disappears.
Next, the strange association of the play, 'Hamlet',
and a group of Australian actors on tour in India.
And Then, the realisation that many people from
different and unconnected areas of his life, seem to
know each other and be involved somehow in the mystery.
As Traven Collins unravels the plot, the seedy
world of publisher Robert Plenty is revealed--a
world of pornography, greed, deception and murder.
All merely a prelude to the ultimate horror for
Traven's close friend Dana.
At the point of breakdown, Traven Collins
must use all his inner strength to proceed to the
inevitable appointment with fate.
And meanwhile he warns constantly of the dictum of
don't look for trouble
or trouble will look for you.
Yes, sometimes it is better not to know, a blessing
in fact. For the truth sometimes hides behind a lie
to disguise the essential terror of the relentless litany of sorrow that its
cracked bell tolls . Either that, or something else, anyway.