Mr. Green Goes to Town

It is 1976 and Phil Harte’s single ambition is to hitchhike to California. When he begins to run out of money in Colorado, Lonnie Hazel, the egotistical conman, loans him $100 and that loan precipitates a series of misadventures as Harte is forced to sell Hazel’s marijuana, all the while pursuing love in the form of Miriam and opportunistic sex with the housewife Hazel ripped off in my debut novel, Mr. Green Goes to Town, which is 140,550 words for this comedy.Hazel has arrived in Mountain Gulch with his 14-year-old girlfriend, Jeannie, and pulled a con on the Randons in order to set himself up in the marijuana business. Menaced by Hazel’s confederates, Skunky Pjorik and especially the churl Steve Gervaske, Phil first operates out of the Arcade and then Dooley’s, a bar, where he meets Denise Randon and they plot to get her money back. Meanwhile, I. E. Bigelow, a private investigator, shows up in town determined to take Jeannie back to her parents in Omaha. Harte, Denise and Bigelow plot together to bring down Hazel, only to have Hazel escape with all the money, Jeannie, and leaving the blame for Harte