Exxxpresso by Dave Warner

Publisher's Synopsis

Just out of the big house, Rick is a good natured ex-crim with a plan to franchise a chain of cafés based on a prison theme. To finance his dream, he borrows from a low-life drug dealer and full-time paranoid, Guthrie. But moments before he is due to pay off his debt to Guthrie, his estranged wife cleans out his bank account.

Rick finds himself running from bad trouble into worse. In the richest square mile of dirt in the world, a state-of-the-art cappucino machine is about to determine the fate of six triple-crossing desperates. Dave’s novel is Elmore Leonard on no-doze - a foot-to-the-floor twisting tale of cheapskates chasing high stakes, lust and dust, in action so rapid it makes jai alai look like snow melting.

My Review 

When you think of Perth, Australia (if you ever did, that is) you would probably conjure up a pleasant city on the slightly small side tucked way over on the west coast of Australia on the edge of an enormous desert. I doubt you’d think of a corrupt city filled with drug-dealers, embezzlers and thieves and indeed, while it isn’t exactly filled, the city has enjoyed a rather sordid past. 

The wealth injected into the place from the state’s numerous rich mines inevitably breeds the low-life characters who feed off it. 

From this basis comes Exxxpresso, a humorous crime caper by Dave Warner that tracks the fortunes of a man trying to fulfil his dream of opening up a coffee shop.

Rick Boski has just been released from a West Australian prison with a great business plan that is a sure fire winner, a cafe with a prison theme. He just needs some money to get things started. As an ex-con he is unable to approach the usual lending institutions for the start-up cash, so instead he approaches Guthrie, a local drug-lord who shylocks on the side. Guthrie loans him $10,000 with the understanding that in one month’s time, on the 9th February, Rick would pay him $15,000. Sure, no worries, after all, Rick’s on a sure fire winner to get up and running. He'll have the 15 grand and then some, right? Yeah, right!

Marietta was Rick’s wife before his stint in gaol, but she wasn’t waiting around for him to finish serving his sentence. The divorce papers have already been lodged and she is now seeing Thaiphoon Tony, a kick-boxer with a chance of challenging for the World Kick-Boxing Title. She and Tony just have to come up with a $15,000 bond by the 9th of February to seal the deal. Hmmm, that date sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

To complete the chaos (and the plot set-up) enter Zeen and her partner Joe Harris who are preparing to exchange a package for a cool $25,000. Their plan goes horribly awry after their paths happen to cross Rick’s. Seizing an unexpected opportunity and in sudden need of money, did I mention that by now it’s February 9 and Rick is a little short and a lot in trouble, Rick finds himself driving out of Perth and far into the desert with the hope that he might be able to make the exchange in place of Zeen and Joe. Unbeknownst to him though, he’s leading a ragtag assortment of conmen, drug-dealers and kick-boxers out there behind him.

What follows is a highly amusing chain of events that takes Rick, Zeen, Thaiphoon Tony, Joe, Guthrie and a few other weird and wonderful supporting characters from Perth to Kalgoorlie and exotic locales in between in a classical caper. It is as improbable as it is entertaining with any number of double-crosses, narrow squeaks, lies, cons, scams and some incredibly bad luck as the money passes from person to person.

The characters are off-beat, somewhat reminiscent of the misfits encountered in an Elmore Leonard book with no attempt to develop them beyond the veneer with which they are introduced. To do so would have detracted from the plot driven style that Warner has employed to such good effect. They serve their purpose as part of a riotous escapade through the desert enhancing the humorous situations that Boski finds himself thrust into.

With multiple threads running through the story it's fascinating to watch them gradually get tied together, particularly the way seemingly unrelated subplots are brought crashing into each other. As a whole it makes for a page turning book that maintains an extremely fast paced – even in the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie.

Dave Warner writes in an easygoing conversational style that flows along nicely and engaged me completely in the romp as it unfolded. He has a flair for turning a seemingly innocent observation into laugh out loud funny commentary that is invariably right on the mark (although occasionally his humour would be best appreciated by Australian readers).

Exxxpresso is a fun chase through the Australian desert with plenty of farcical confrontations mixed in with a few down and dirty moments of outright violence. This is the kind of book that allows you to kick back and let yourself be entertained, rather reminiscent of Donald Westlake (King of the farce) or Carl Hiaasen (even down to the occasional environmental comment).