Who's the real Mr Boots? Erich Ambrose fools people for a living. It's a family tradition. But when a party stunt goes disastrously wrong, he finds himself in deep trouble, on the run through Chicago streets and northern woods, matching wits with the FBI and national security agents and money launderers, all while trying to please a violent homecoming queen and a badass rabbit. Humorous and probing, this is a story of how our past haunts the present, and how the cruellest tricks are the ones we play on ourselves.
Charles Holdefer, author of four novels, including The Contractor and Back In The Game, grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Sorbonne. He currently teaches at the University of Poitiers, France. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including the New England Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, North American Review, Los Angeles Review, Slice and Yellow Silk. His story The Raptor won a Pushcart Prize. He also writes essays and reviews which have appeared in The Antioch Review, World Literature Today, New England Review, The Dactyl Review, The Collagist, l'Oeil du Spectateur, New York Journal of Books, Journal of the Short Story in English and elsewhere. MAGIC EVEN YOU CAN DO: BY BLAST is his latest book (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2019).
