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    The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir
    The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir
    The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir

    Written by Ken Harmon

    Narrated by Johnny Heller

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol, two-foot-three-inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one special day each year. But somewhere along the way things went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog, trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forest, battle the infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends. The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat man himself. Holly Jolly!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 27, 2010
    ISBN9781400189861
    The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir

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    Reviews for The Fat Man

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      This is humor at the expense of everything North Pole. It is a very light murder mystery in the noir style, with some rerences to Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Almost every other sentence has some reference to a Christmas song, story, or legend. And the puns and jokes are numerous. The author makes frequent allusions to familiar, and not-so familiar books and movies. These aren't the kind of symbols that get lost in the reading, these are the kind that pick you up like a rosy-cheeked rag doll and throw you in the road to get run over by a reindeer. That's what these words do. Over and over. We follow the exploits of Gumdrop Cole. Although not famous by name, he is responsible for starting the Coal Patrol. Those are the elves responsible for identifying bad children and giving them lumps of coal for Christmas. But things are changing, now he is out of a job. He decided to take matters into his own hands, and one of his 'clients' ends up being shot in the eye by a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred Shot Range Model BB Gun with a compass in its stock. Gumdrop was framed. Clues point to Ralphie, and lead his investigations to the Misfit Toy Mafia, and his nemesis, Charles "Candy" Cane. The book is a fun and quick read. The bad jokes almost get tiring by the time the book runs out, so the length is good. Sit back, take a weekend and read a little humor into your Christmas.
    • 4/5
      A very cool (pardon the pun) combination of Thin Man style writing and plot with any and all of the characters you can think of that appear during Christmas. Part of the fun of the book was encountering someone/something else that you see/hear at Christmastime in a completely different way than you would normally think of them. The noir-style was also spot on, and adjusted to be Christmassy as well, but not in a bad way, which I really appreciated. A good, quick read that I really enjoyed.
    • 3/5
      I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up The Fat Man. What I got was a funny take on every Christmas tale I grew up loving.Ken Harmon establishes the humorous tone of The Fat Man immediately. For example, the murder victim isn’t killed just any old way. No, this man got his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, and the prime suspect used potty mouth Ralphie as an accomplice. Gumdrop doesn’t go to any place to get help. No, he heads for Whoville and is forced to speak in rhyming iambic pentameter. The fun continued as our hero goes to all the famous Christmas locations: Pottersville, the Island of Misfit Toys, and Kringle Town.The Fat Man is a fun, witty journey through all of our Christmas shows and movies. I enjoyed seeing how Harmon put all the tales together, and I appreciated seeing some of my favorite characters become parodies of themselves. Pick up The Fat Man for a fun read anytime.
    • 2/5
      Schmaltzy, weird morality, overly cute Christmassy, “noir” tale.Look it started out well: World weary and grumpy elf that runs coal patrol for naughty kids gets caught up in a dastardly conspiracy. Noir tropes collide with every Christmas story going and whilst maybe too cute it was a bit of holiday fun. Fun that was short lived and quickly went into bemused, bored, unease (yes that is a valid emotion thank you).Look I like Noir, I like the wisecracking and derring-do. I like dark chasms of human behaviour against a sliver of light and darkness. I like it when an author plays with these things. I like silliness, larger than life characters, funky criminals and flawed wise-cracking white knights. I can even forgive a lot of the sexism if there is something else there.What I do not like overly cute tales with morality lectures. I get really creeped out by the bad guys always being the ugly and disabled ones. I get fed up when tired old national stereotypes are used as jokes and when a series of dangerous set pieces are always solved by luck. I hate it when two different characters say exactly the same catch phrase as if the author forgot whom he was writing. I hate an adult book that refuses to grow up.. I mean everyone (i.e. the ugly) has a heart of gold if only we were nice to them eh? Suuuure.So um no. Unless you are the biggest Santa fan in the entire world and have Christmas every day, avoid.
    • 4/5
      Gumdrop Coal, the elf that delivers coal to bad boys and girls, finds himself out of a job and on the run after he's accused of killing off one of the former bad kids, now a parent himself. To clear his name, he'll travel all around Kringle Town to figure out whodunit in this Christmas-y noir tale.Filled with Christmas cultural references and puns galore, this was a fun holiday read though the mystery for me was secondary. Most of the chapter titles are lines from Christmas songs, the bad side of the tracks is Pottersville, and basically if there's a holiday pun to made, it is. There's a late, surprising turn to the religious, in my mind, and though it didn't bother me, it may be jarring or unwelcome to some readers.
    • 5/5
      very creative and funny
    • 5/5
      This story is full of wry wit, wonderful one liners, characters with great names and a reminder of the kind of person each of us should strive to be. This is Ken Harmon's first book and wow, he knocked it out of the park. Fantastic!
    • 2/5
      Full of hilarious puns and Christmas jokes. After a while it wears a little thin but it's all in good fun. It's amazing how author, Ken Harmon, is able to combine soo many elements of holiday lore into such a wild tale of noir. Gumdrop Coal is our hero, or rather, anti-hero. He's the leader of the coal patrol, and leaves Kringle Town once a year to leave coal for all the bad boys and girls. One day, that all ends and he finds himself out of a job, how did he get on the bad side of the fat man? Is he being frames? Is someone trying to ruin Christmas or take it away from Santa? In order to save his hide and reputation, Gumdrop must get to the bottom of the mystery. He finds himself confronting the misfit toys, enlisting the help of Ralphie and his red ryder bb gun, and some other elves. It will make readers chuckle, but it could have been wrapped up a little sooner. A creative and inventive holiday read.
    • 3/5
      Gumdrop Coal is one angry elf and gets fired just before Christmas. Is it because he hates naughty kids who don’t learn their lesson or the fact he starts taking it out on the parents. When one parent is found murdered, it looks like Gumdrop is the culprit but is he being framed. Hence, the mystery begins. He sets out to clear his name and find the true culprit.A Christmas story blended with noir, makes for an interesting combination. I really liked how Ken Harmon added every bit of Christmas lore into the story from your traditional characters to George Bailey and Ralphie from A Christmas Story. But once you get passed that , it is a detective story. Started out well, but falls flat at the end when Gumdrop and the rest (including the reader) learn the true meaning of Christmas. I really wanted to love this story and would like to see a movie made from it, but it’s not one to share with the family during the holiday season.
    • 4/5
      This was a great take on a noir book. Using a very liberal dosing of Holiday Hijinks and language. I found this very amusing and humorous. I could have done with a little less hitting over the head with Jesus, but I liked the use of language so much it made up for it.