Cheap Trills, page 1
Praise for the Cyd Redondo Mysteries
Lost Luggage
Macavity Award and Lefty nominee for Best Debut Novel 2018
Drowned Under
Anthony nominee Best Paperback Original and
Lefty nominee Best Humorous Mystery 2020
Fogged Off
Lefty nominee for Best Humorous Mystery 2022
“Cheap Trills is strikingly original, brightly inventive, masterfully plotted and, on occasion, truly hilarious. To say this seasoned travel agent is a cynic would be an understatement. But she’s our kind of cynic: world-wise, sharp-witted, undeterred and with a heart that bleeds compassion. Equipped with her trusty Balenciaga purse, there’s no danger she can’t handle, no mystery she won’t tackle, no bloody wound she can’t patch up. Brilliant writing, engaging reading!” —Stephen Mack Jones, author of the award winning August Snow thriller novels
“Bali High! Cyd Redondo is at her charming, quirky, and determined best in Cheap Trills. Thomas’s tight, clever, and witty writing has never been better!” —Matt Coyle, award-winning author of the bestselling Rick Cahill series
“Thomas has created a sidesplittingly hilarious heroine without rival. Cheap Thrills is a nonstop laugh adventure.” —James L’Etoile, award-winning author of Dead Drop and the Detective Emily Hunter series
“Cyd Redondo puts the fun in funicular. Sparkling, witty, delightful. I laughed on every single page.” —Lou Diamond Phillips, actor, director, and bestselling author of The Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira
“I love, love, love this book. . . screwball comedy mystery at its best.” —Dru’s Book Musings
“These books are wonderfully outrageous, consistently surprising, and totally hilarious—instant escape, instant entertainment, and diabolically clever. I would follow the fab Cyd Redondo anywhere.” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author
“Thomas makes a rollicking debut with this comic mystery featuring an unconventional protagonist who proves to have the skills of MacGyver. With its sexy overtones, this fun, character-driven novel will appeal to Janet Evanovich fans.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Fogged Off is what the world needs right now . . . truly laugh-out-loud, coffee-down-your-shirt, don’t-read-it-on-the-bus hilarious. The sheer joyful ass-kickery of this terrific heroine is second to none.” —Catriona McPherson multi-award winning author of the Last Ditch Motel mysteries
“Laugh-out-loud funny and enchantingly ridiculous . . . highly entertaining.” —Shelf Awareness
“Brilliant, hilarious, and surprising from start to finish, Wendall Thomas’s new mystery is a screwball delight . . . If Preston Sturges and Janet Evanovich had a baby, she would be Cyd Redondo.” —Haris Orkin, award-winning author of You Only Live Once and Goldhamme
“I loved Lost Luggage . . . Great combination of humor, social satire, espionage, gender politics, and animal trafficking. Cyd Redondo is smart, sexy, and wonderfully dented.” —Tom DiCillo, writer/director of Living in Oblivion and Delirious
“Thank heavens! I’ve been waiting for years to find a successor to Janet Evanovich, and I’ve finally found one.” —Cathy G. Cole for Kittling Books
“Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum will cotton to Cyd.” —Publishers Weekly
“A hilarious book . . . Ms. Thomas has an absolutely lunatic talent for plot and one of the funniest first-person voices I’ve read in years.” —Timothy Hallinan, Lefty winner and Edgar and Macavity Award-nominated author of the Junior Bender and Poke Rafferty novels
“Drowned Under puts Thomas in a class with Carl Hiassen . . .” —Nancy Tingley, Lefty-nominated author of the Jenna Murphy Mysteries
“Cyd’s Balenciaga bag deserves to become as legendary as Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker and magnifying glass.” —James W. Ziskin, Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Award-winning author of the Ellie Stone mysteries
“A breath of fresh air in a world gone mad. Has my vote for one of the best new characters in mystery/crime.” —The Reading Room
“You will laugh from the very first page. I love every single book in this series. Don’t miss any of them.” —New York Times best-selling author Paige Shelton
“What a heroine for the modern age. Do not miss this!” —Daryl Wood Gerber, Agatha Award-winning national bestselling author of the Cookbook Nook and French Bistro Mysteries
“Thomas packs a whole franchise’s worth of adventures into her heroine’s debut . . .” —Kirkus Reviews
“Fogged Off has suspense, murders, international scandals, backstabbing . . . humor, frivolity, light-hearted conflict, and most of all it has Cyd . . . she is the plot, the plan, the problem, and the solution.” —Looks at Books
Books by Wendall Thomas
Cyd Redondo Mysteries
Lost Luggage
Drowned Under
Fogged Off
Cheap Trills
Title Page
Copyright
Cheap Trills
Wendall Thomas
Copyright © 2023 by Wendall Thomas
Cover design Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
The map of Bali featured on the cover is from a painting by Miguel Covarrubias
Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
www.beyondthepagepub.com
ISBN: 978-1-960511-19-5
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Author’s Note
It was a privilege and a challenge to write this novel.
Bali is an extraordinary, gorgeous, complicated, sacred place and by far the most fascinating location I’ve ever researched. To me, the way the Balinese people are able to weave their religion and culture through every aspect of their daily lives is astounding and completely unique.
The book also required extensive research into endangered Indonesian songbirds, the criminals who poach and traffic them, and the heroes who work tirelessly to save them. This is also a compelling and heartbreaking world, with many moving parts.
Because this is a comic novel, and because everything in it is filtered through Cyd Redondo’s first person narration and her Bay Ridge upbringing, I wasn’t able to delve as deeply or as seriously into these subjects as they deserve.
I hope perhaps some of you will. And if Cyd inspires you to explore Bali, I have faith you’ll respect its rich culture and leave the island the way you found it.
Acknowledgments
Writing a travel book during the pandemic, especially one about the new-to-me world of endangered songbirds, would never have been possible without the wonderful people who took time out of their busy schedules to help and advise me.
First, Dr. Chris R. Shepherd of the Conservation Monitor Research Society has been so generous with his time, stories, and research. He was the one who pointed me in the direction of the bird markets and songbird competitions in Indonesia and their effect on the native bird populations. He has spent his whole life in the service of endangered species. I admire him tremendously and am so grateful for his help. Thanks to Loretta Shepherd of CMRS as well.
Lori Rogalski has traveled to Bali to work on starling conservation, and also helped to hand-raise two clutches of starling chicks at the Los Angeles Zoo’s Avian Conservation Center. When she assured me it wasn’t impossible for Cyd to keep the newborn birds alive in her purse, I knew I had a book. I owe all the details on the habits, care, and feeding of these extraordinary creatures to her. She is another person doing so much good in the world.
Sincere thanks also to Jan Mantjika—a travel agent in Bali for fifty years—for her kindness. Her heartbreaking and occasionally hilarious memoir, Bali 1964 to 2009: The Shadows that Dance in and out of My Memory, was of immeasurable help in my understanding of Bali and of the challenges visitors face there, and I was thrilled to find, in her, Cyd’s real-life doppelgänger.
Nancy Tingley also served as an advisor on Bali, as well as offering smart text edits.
Everyone’s advice and information has been impeccable. Any errors are completely my own.
I have the kindest, speediest beta readers on the planet in my husband, James Bartlett, my sister, Kim Stout, and my friend Daryl Wood Gerber. Thanks also to Rochelle Staab for her notes on the early pages, and to Catriona McPherson, who always answers emails promptly, with exactly the right advice. My deepest gratitude to James L’Etoile, Matt Coyle, Hank Phillippi
So many friends and family members supplied moral support as well, so thanks to all, but especially to Ray Stout, Carol Bartlett, Carolyn Thomas, Rick and Carter McGarry, Smith Richardson, Keith Sears, Nancy Cole Silverman, Baron R. Birtcher, Wyatt Easterling, Debbie Clark Kaiser, and Karin Altmann (for the Balenciaga!).
Thanks also to the lovely Beatrice Ann North, whose generous donation to the Anaheim Public Library Foundation landed her namesake in the soup with Cyd.
My editor and publisher, Bill Harris, was, as always, a huge support and a delight to work with. Hats off to artist and designer Dar Albert for the cover, and belatedly, for her gorgeous work on Fogged Off as well.
And finally, thanks to all the librarians, booksellers, reviewers, and bloggers who have been so kind to Cyd over the years, I can never thank you enough.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Books by Wendall Thomas
About the Author
Chapter One
Eat. Pray. Barf.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s pert best-seller was ruining 2007, and it wasn’t even March. I should have known when my eighty-two-year-old lapsed nun assistant asked “How much could an ashram really cost?” I was in trouble. I just didn’t know how much.
Eat, Pray, Love featured three locations: Italy, India, and Bali. Italy could be expensive, and, for some women raised on chuck roast, Catholicism, and coffee klatches, the book’s promised “vegetarian vow of silence” version of India was a stretch. That left Bali, which was gorgeous, affordable, and (erroneously) associated with South Pacific, as the hands-down winner for recent inquiries at Redondo Travel.
Because of the complicated travel logistics alone, I’d tried to steer any Rodgers and Hammerstein fans to Fiji instead. For my clients, rumors of a 2008 Broadway revival of the fan favorite musical, paired with the book’s promise of sexy, single Brazilian lovers at every seaside bar, trumped my expertise, which, let’s face it, was completely theoretical anyway.
I had nothing against Bali, personally. In fact, I was fascinated by everything the guidebooks said about it. It had Kermit-green terraced rice fields, crowd-pleasing interactive monkey forests, mesmerizing and astonishingly accessorized traditional dances, over ten thousand Hindu temples, volcanic lakes, stunning cliffs, coves, and both white and black beaches. For those who cared, the surfing was world-class, though I’d read the locals mostly stayed away from the sea, which they believed was full of demons. Apparently, the Balinese thought the whole world was an ongoing fight between gods and demons—kind of like Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
So, I could understand the attraction. If someone was forty, sporty, and had alimony to burn, Bali made sense. And it was a nice change to have a few clients who were more interested in massages than Metamucil. I kept the fact I considered them book club delusionals to myself.
Nobody loved to read more than I did. I spent half my childhood—and huge chunks since—at the Bay Ridge Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library reading everything Head Librarian Bea Ann North recommended. Books were one thing. Book clubs were another. Anyone who believed a book club was anything more than an excuse to drink wine and try out appetizer recipes was a donut short of a baker’s dozen. Still, in moments of quiet desperation, or overwhelming peer pressure, we’d all succumbed to some boozy book club or other. Even my hermit mom, Bridget Mary Colleen Colleary Redondo, had given one a whirl.
Before now, I’d only had a sprinkling of book club–inspired travelers—a widower headed for the Louvre after The Da Vinci Code, a sentimental retiree headed for the Carolinas after The Notebook or The Prince of Tides, a mother/daughter rehab trip to Malibu after Postcards From the Edge—but suddenly, Eat, Pray, Love freaks were calling daily for their shot at tropical self-realization. That was fine until Gilbert’s book made its way into local thrift stores and library book sales and my regular clients started to inquire about Bali, too.
For the last ten years, in order to survive, our family business had specialized in senior citizen travel. At the advanced age of thirty-two, I was the queen of destinations with wheelchair ramps, Flying Doctors, and AARP discounts. My clients, however young they felt, had specific requirements, which I didn’t mention, but always catered to. Not only did Bali lack most senior amenities, it had additional risk factors.
The island might qualify as one of the most beautiful and exotic places on earth, but it had suffered two terrorist attacks in the last five years, had a serious drink spiking problem, and had three active volcanoes. Three. The island, which resembled a veal chop, was barely the size of Delaware. Imagine three active volcanoes nestled around I-95 in the Diamond State. Would you risk your retirement savings for three days and two nights at a Marriot there, however good the crab cakes?
Although I appreciated that many of my older clients would be happy to go out doing something they loved, I’m not sure that included melting. Or standing before a firing squad. Bali had the death penalty for even minor drug smugglers and jail time for all sorts of contraband, from undeclared cash to racy magazines. After my experience in Tanzania, I was particularly nervous about smugglers taking advantage of my senior clients’ gullibility—or their luggage. I was just checking into Bali’s 2006 tourist arrests when the phone rang.
“Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel.”
“Cyd, it’s Madge Dupree.” Madge’s voice reeked of forty years of Virginia Slims, bought one carton at a time. I used to babysit for her four rug rats when I was eleven. I think her oldest was about a communion wafer younger than I was. Her husband had developed a sudden interest in the strippers of Fort Hamilton six years ago. Honestly, why does anyone get married? I’d tried to send her to Fiji, but she’d been adamant about Bali, so I assumed she was calling back to book her trip.
