Most Popular Books by William Kotzwinkle

A quick-witted insect sleuth, patterned after Sherlock Holmes, displays his brilliant powers of deduction in solving five mysteries.

After being sold at the family''s yard sale, Walter is put to use blowing up balloons for a clown who is bent on robbing banks, but he escapes and becomes a hero.

Award-winning and bestselling author William Kotzwinkle is back with the second in the darkly comedic Felonious Monk series featuring Tommy Martini, a Benedictine monk with an anger management problem. Felonious Monk was praised as “amiably satirical” (Washington Post) and “a whiplash adventure” (Wall Street Journal). Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa. At the heart of Coalville is Parade Square, with plenty of pigeons, drugs, and child prostitution. It’s the new small-town America, where Dionysus is dancing once again. William Kotzwinkle’s insight into this paradigm shift is shot through with the humor he is famous for, and the result is a spicy brew, a bloody martini—just one sip may keep you up all night.

Everyone''s smelly dog is off on another adventure, this time holidaying at the beach with the family. When his smelliness can no longer be tolerated by other holidaymakers, he is banned from the beach. Walter consoles himself with some uncooked tropical fruit... Gasses start to build. Then the family become marooned on an island... Can Walter save the day?

Walter the Farting Dog is now a hero of the high seas! Everybody is having a great time on a cruise . . . until a terrible odor permeates the ship. All signs point to Walter, and so he is first banished down below, with the stinky cheeses, and then into a lifeboat to float behind the ocean liner. Then catastrophe strikes! How long will the great cruise ship and its frightened passengers be marooned on the high seas? About as long as it takes Walter to digest that cheese!

A mysterious presence transforms the lives of a tyrannical chief executive officer, a nice young woman, a Santa Claus with an unsavory past, an earnest young man, and a spaced-out window decorator on Christmas Eve in Fontaine''s department store.

Describes a small Shaker community in Maine, discusses the origin and beliefs of the religion, and looks at the yearly routines of Shaker life

E.T. has returned to his home, the Green Planet. He is in disgrace and misses his friend from Earth, Elliot. E.T. decides he must try to return to Earth.

"Midnight Examiner" débute par une constatation élémentaire : la vie du journaliste de base est dure (et son corps est mou). Surtout s''il travaille pour quinze journaux à scandales, que le patron des publications est un cinglé qui tire à la sarbacane sur tout ce qui bouge, que le directeur artistique se borne à "ombrer" les photos licencieuses et à peindre des vaches en tutu sur les murs, que les gangsters viennent semer la panique et que le taxi qui relie les chapitres entre eux (et sauve la vie des héros) est arabe, fils de pilleurs de tombes et aveugle aux beautés du code de la route. L''action se passe à New York, évidemment. "A la première page, on peut sourire. A la deuxième, rire. A la troisième, glousser. Après, sauve qui peut." (François Forestier, L''Express)

The gentle extraterrestrial''s return to his home planet discloses that he has fallen out of favor with his colleagues, who try to prevent his journey back to Earth to provide spiritual guidance for his young friend, Elliott.

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. Since killing somebody with a single punch is not a needed talent in a monastery, he spends his time praying, meditating, and taking his anger management medicine. But his meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy''s own sleep is disturbed -- by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity. He loses his anger management medicine in time to deal with the hitmen, but the women present an uphill battle. William Kotzwinkle''s quicksilver touch has produced an effervescent piece of entertainment filled with suspense, turns you won''t see coming, and the humor for which he is famous.

C''est l''aube du jour qu''ils ont tant attendu, et sur les chemins glacés d''une forêt du Maine un homme et une femme se mettent en route vers la maternité. Si près d''eux, pourtant si lointain encore, dans la " mer secrète ", un petit nageur se débat pour venir à leur rencontre. Longuement, interminablement, soudés par la force démesurée de leur attente, ils l''encouragent à les rejoindre, se trouvent l''un l''autre tels qu''ils furent, tels qu''ils sont devenus, face à cet avenir inespéré, précaire, incertain. Car le scénario n''est jamais joué d''avance, et l''aventure de la naissance peut à chaque instant imposer à l''espoir un désaveu aussi tragique qu''inexorable. L''art de William Kotzwinkle nous fait témoins d''une sincérité et d''une rigueur peu commune. Il faut ici en prévenir le lecteur : ce court texte est sans doute l''un des plus beaux et des plus bouleversants qu''il nous ait été donné de publier.