Stein, Stung
by Hal Ackerman
Coming: March 2012
“Sly humor abounds in Ackerman’s second mystery featuring aging L.A. hippie Harry Stein.”–Publishers Weekly
Last time it was stolen weed and knockoff designer shampoo. This time it is the seemingly trivial occurrence of a few pilfered honeybee colonies that propel former hippie and merry prankster, Harry Stein into the multi-trillion dollar world of the honeybee industry. In the presence of six trillion bees to pollinate millions of acres of almond trees, Stein who is deathly allergic to bee stings, discovers the natural catastrophe of colony collapse, and a corrupt grab by organized AGROBIZ for all of the available water in Southern California.
In his absence, Harry’s daughter Angie and Lila’s very attractive 17 year-old Stepson find an elephant tusk that has seeped into Lila’s pool from the la Brea tar pits. When the rest of the skeleton emerges, it turns out not to be the prehistoric mammoth they’d hoped it would be, but a human being who just might have been murdered in the 1920s The perpetrator of the 80 year-old murder is still alive and the most powerful man in Los Angeles and will do anything necessary to keep the secret hidden.
PRAISE FOR HAL ACKERMAN’S STEIN, STONED
“Just when you thought you’d seen everything in detective fiction, along comes P.I. Harry Stein, a shambling, abstaining dope connoisseur, trying to make a living and be a good father against the oddest of odds. This book is so funny, surprising, and compelling that, dare I say it, it practically gets you high. It’s Hal Ackerman’s first in what is sure to be a sensational series of Stein mysteries.”
—John Lithgow
“Harry fits comfortably into that delightfully comic line of slacker sleuths—a tradition that runs from the Fletch novels through Newton Thornburg’s 1976 cult classic Cutter and Bone and, of course, The Big Lebowski. The Dude abides with Harry Stein.”
—Booklist
“Pot smokers, past and present, will best appreciate the fiction debut of UCLA theater professor Ackerman…”
—Publishers Weekly
“Smart, witty, and wonderfully observed. But what really raises Stein,Stoned above the run-of-the-mill mysteries is the character of Harry Stein. Hal Ackerman has created a poignant, middle-aged Jewish hero worthy of Saul Bellow.”
—Loraine Despres, The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc
“I can’t escape an abiding belief that Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon are back in the writing business, sharing the pseudonym – Hal Ackerman. Stein, Stoned (Ackerman’s first book but definitely not his last), is an idiosyncratic mystery with more surprising twists and turns than an episode of Dancing with the Stars. And in Harry Stein (who seldom responds to or uses his first name), Ackerman has created a P.I. with an allegiance to the sixties (after all, he was a marijuana maven) who effortlessly links past and present brilliantly and satirically. Plus, Stein is the only detective I know who functions in current fiction as a DWF (Detective with Family). In a highly imaginative story of corporate malfeasance and murder, Stein spends equal time solving the mystery and resolving his relationship with his teenage daughter. All in all, a must read… from a writer capable of perfect prose and rollicking humor. “
—Leonard B. Stern, Creator and Executive Producer of McMillan and Wife, Get Smart and Co-Creator of Mad Libs