BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST
by Gar Anthony Haywood
The Airstream trailer that's become home to retired California cop Big Joe Loudermilk and his wife Dottie pulls up outside the D.C. apartment of their radical pacifist son Eddieand weird and wonderful adventures commence. Eddie quarrels with an ex-roommate, non-pacifist Emmitt Bell; the police arrest Eddie for Emmitt's murder; Joe and Dottie, fresh from rescuing their son Bad Dog (Going Nowhere Fast, 1994), get on the case and hire an upbeat lawyer (``the Pillsbury Doughboy on Valium'') for Eddie; a break-in to Emmitt's place marks the real killer as somebody who really likes books; Joe and Dottie get on the trail of a much-sought book that might be The Power of Modern Litigation, and then again might be an indiscreet Senator's sexually explicit diaries; two different contingents of police officers break into the Airstream; Dottie causes a sensation at the Lincoln Memorial by claiming that she saw Lincoln's eyes move. Et cetera. The Loudermilk chronicles are an irresistibly rollicking riposte to the family-values crowd, though Haywood does seem to be making it all up as he goes along.