The Death and Life of Bobby Z

Decorated ex-marine and ex-con Tim Kearney impersonates drug dealer Bobby Z with major consequences

Tim is a juvenile burglar that a liberal minded judge decides to sentence to the U.S. Marine instead of juvenile jail. True to his nature, Kierney wins the Navy Cross for heroism during the Gulf War only to get a dishonorable discharge for knocking out a Saudi colonel. Tim objected to the brutal way the colonel was disciplining a Saudi soldier.

Dishonorably discharged Kearney is shoved back into a life of crime when his friend Wayne LaPerriere (rhythms with the French word for buttocks) decides to rob a gas station-convenience store after picking Kearney up from Chino state prison. LaPerriere decides to pin the robbery on Tim in exchange for a light sentence. Now a three-strikes criminal he is sent to San Quentin to do hard time. But wait, it gets worse. In San Quentin Tim is told by Hells Angel leader Stinkdog he must join the Aryan brotherhood or die. Rather than die or join the brotherhood, Kearney kills Stinkdog in self-defense.

Now facing sure death in the San Quentin at the vengeful hands of Stinkdog’s Aryan brothers, Kearney meets Drug Enforcement Agency’s Tad Gruzsa who makes Kearney a life-saving proposition. Impersonate Orange County, California drug kingpin Robert James Zacharias—the great Bobby Z—and be traded to infamous Mexican drug lord Don Huertero in exchange for one of Gruzsa DEA agents.

We’re still in the first chapter of this very fast-paced and very funny action adventure novel. And from the beginning the reader cannot help but like Tim Kearney. He has a well-defined sense of duty, a streak of chivalry and a self-depreciating nature that makes him endearing. From the moment he is exchanged for Gruzsa’s DEA agent, Tim becomes hunted by nearly every imaginable bad guy possible: the Hells Angels, Gruzsa and the DEA—the DEA agent being swapped is shot during the exchange, an East LA gang, and Don Huertero and his henchmen.

While all these bad guys are trying to kill him, Tim runs off with Bobby Z’s son, Kit, a precocious six-year old who is over-the-moon that Kierney –who Kit is convinced is his real dad—has come to take care of him. In the process Kierney steal the heart one of Bobby Z’s women, Elizabeth, a woman born to be a courtesan in the world of jet-set druggies. Don Huertero describes Elizabeth in this way. "Elizabeth is warm, lovely, charming, intelligent and lazy. She has the body of a courtesan—that is her blessing. She also has the soul of a courtesan, and that is her curse."

How these three unlikely partners—Kierney, Kit, and Elizabeth—manage to stay alive throughout this 300-page book is very entertaining reading. In retrospect, the book reminds me of a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon, with Kearney playing the role of the elusive roadrunner.

One other character in the book deserves mention. His name is One-Way, a street person and self-proclaimed apostle to Bobby Z. He is a man whose mind has been wasted on the drugs he helped Z transport, yet still his loyalty and his sense of duty remain strong. One-way mysteriously senses that Bobby Z has returned to claim his kingdom, completely unaware that Kierney has donned the Z’s mantel. One-way is the chorus in this Greek comedy of errors. The comedy even comes with a deus ex machina, with one-way driving the machine that will leave the reader content with the ending.

In the action-adventure genre of books, The Death and Life of Bobby Z is an E-ticket literary ride, one certainly to entertain far better than an airline movie or an evening of banal television sitcoms and dramas.

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