Jeffrey Kipnis

The Blawnox Unpleasantness Jeffrey Kipnis

Something lurks in the idyllic suburbs of western Pennsylvania. Something that wants to get its appendages on a heroic rodent hunting one of his greater enemies, and the two humans with whom his daily crusade for justice has become intertwined. Lightning Squirrel has discovered the summer retreat of an evil ice-cream vendor. His neurotic arch nemesis Miss Phoebe Katonic (aka Swimming Lady) has been released from the Squirrels Nest Home on a weekend pass for a road trip with her dashing and imaginative boyfriend Dano K. Dath (aka Comic Man) to exciting Pittsburgh. But these travelers encounter something worse than a maniacal snowman animator, and far worse than a series of confusing beltways. For in the little town of Blawnox, the annual Town Festival is not just about bluegrass bands and antique sellers and cotton candy and carnival games. The Festival is about something older, more sinister something downright unpleasant. The old woman on the corner named Clara can tell tales of perils hinted at in the local market, or scrabbling outside the hotel window, or shadowing the old church. She can tell Dano and Phoebe to escape, but she cannot tell them how.