THE FICTION REPORTER

Book of the Decade Club

featuring

the mystery novel

by colin talbot,

"the zen detective"


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 is a murder not a murder?

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

The Zen Detective

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.


copies of 'the zen detective' are available in paperback for $50.00 (signed) from the author. this book is no longer available in first-hand bookshops