WHEN PIGS FLY by Bob Sanchez

iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Road, Lincoln, NE
www.iuniverse.com
Genre: Fictional Humor
Rating: Exceptional
ISBN: 0595407706, $18.95, 307 pp.

My first thought: Bob Sanchez is an exceptional, gifted writer, and this novel should be picked up and published by a mainstream publisher. His writing style and humor remind me of John Dunning’s The Bookman’s Wake and Janet Evanovich’s crazy, colorful characters. When Pigs Fly is not just a simple story but an experience in masterful writing with marvelous metaphors, and then again, it is a simple story . . . about a retired cop, Mack Durgin, trying to fulfill his deceased partner’s wish to have his ashes scattered over the Grand Canyon.

You can open this book at any page and find something delightful. Let’s check out page 127:

"Carrick and Brodie Durgin (Mack’s parents) felt like the luckiest couple on Earth. They had survived a nasty assault, in large part due to Brodie’s fortuitous purchase of a bullwhip in Laramie a few years back. How many husbands were thoughtful enough to give their wives bullwhip-cracking lessons for their wedding anniversary. And my goodness, how many people were rescued from bodily harm by apparently conscience-stricken housebreakers? The Durgins owed their lives to those two young lads. Without them, that reprehensible, smelly beast would surely have killed them both. The police had taken statements from Carrick and Brodie but had no luck in locating the attacker or the two young men.

"None of this hampered Carrick and Brodie’s plans. Three days after the attack, they flew into Las Vegas with a gambling budget of a hundred dollars each. Then they gleefully wrestled the one-armed bandits as they won a dollar for every two they lost. Dinner was a wonderful catalog of everything forbidden in their diets, but ah, the consequences were for another day. They made love in a luxurious bed, though it wasn’t quite so easy for them after sixty years of marriage. Carrick would challenge anyone to name a woman–albeit a very mature one–prettier than Brodie. For her part, she could name several older men more handsome than Carrick, but she had the good grace not to.

"Their blessings were plenty: His prostate was healthy and her mole benign. Her arthritis didn’t act up every day, and his arteries had been Roto-Rootered–angioplasty was the fancy term–and their teeth held tight when they bit into apples. Each could finish the other’s sentences, but out of mutual consideration they didn’t do it unless the spouse’s train of thought had derailed. Each knew the other’s mind was slipping, and each was determined to compensate. Of course they were drifting downstream, headed toward the distant, inevitable rapids, but they planned to hold hands for as long as they could and marvel at the ride."

Besides the catchy tale of humorous, crazy characters and bizarre situations, a sweet thread of sensitivity weaves its way throughout these pages.

Bob Sanchez is a consummate writer and has spent most of his life as a technical writer in New England. He currently writes fiction, book reviews and magazine articles in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Reviewed by Kaye Trout - March 9, 2007