When his father plays the sax, he blows crowds away. But when Dorsey Duquesne picks up a guitar, he simply blows. Though he’s a wealthy software entrepreneur, music just isn’t in his blood—and neither is his father’s DNA. When his mother Cherry reveals (at his father’s funeral, of all places) he was adopted at birth, Dorsey’s tin ear suddenly makes sense. But it also leaves the 40-year-old questioning his identity. Emotionally adrift, he hires a one-eyed strip-mall detective, hoping the missing pieces will provide the peace he’s been missing. Meanwhile Cherry, along with Dorsey’s wife and best friend, are colluding to keep him from finding the long-buried truth about his “adoption.”
A yellowed, anonymous letter leads the vulnerable Dorsey to a dusty vineyard in the Black Forest—and straight to a jitterbugging, strudel-baking redhead named Mitzi, who claims to be his birth mother. Employing a well-rehearsed charm, she slowly wins him over—and away from his family. While in Germany, and with the help of the axe-wielding village night watchman, Dorsey does some long-overdue growing up. But will his eyes open in time to see his new “mom” has a darker agenda? And will he realize the true definition of family before it’s too late?
Bill Cokas unearths a comic mystery at the heart of a fractured family and its botched adoption. Battle Axe is an offbeat, humorous suspense that places quirky, flawed characters in unwelcome situations. Adopted or “normal,” readers will find something to relate to and someone to root for. Readers who appreciate the colorful characters and unconventional plots of Carl Hiaasen, Janet Evanovich and Christopher Moore should thoroughly enjoy Battle Axe.
