I no longer remember what caused me to open this book. I think maybe it was something I read about the author or one of his other books but whatever it was... thank you!! It was thoroughly enjoyable. Marcus gets laid off from his job at a toy manufacturer because they are moving the manufacturing to China. He flounders. Until his estranged brother dies and leaves him his business which turns Marcus into a pimp. It works, trust me. ( )

I was hoping for more laughs but the author uses the unlikely premise to ponder themes of good and evil and social judgement. Marcus, our protagonist, loses his 15 year job as factory manager and due to his inability to find a new job and the impending financial needs of his family decides that when he has the opportunity to pick up/inherit the escort service that his estranged and financially successful brother had created. ( )

Greenland has a very funny premise here. When a criminal dies, he lives his “dry-cleaning business” to his long estranged brother. This business “opportunity” lands in his brother’s lap at the perfect time. Marcus Ripps, an average Joe, has just found out that the entire toy-manufacturing operation where’s he been a foreman for 15 years is being shipped to China. Without the inheritance from his brother Marcus would have two options – move his wife and 13-year-old son to China to run the plant there or face unemployment. The inherited drycleaning business seems to be a godsend, but Marcus quickly discovers the business is a front for a prostitution ring. Faced with limited options, Marcus decides to give being a pimp a try and Greenland milks every drop of humor there is to be found as this average Joe goes about trying to learn and manage the business – everything from interviewing girls to discover which perversions they’re willing to tolerate all the way to deciding what to do with the body of a John who dies in flagrante delicto. Marcus is determined to be a good guy pimp so he even establishes a 401(k) and health plan for his working girls. Originally, he tries to keep the business a secret from his wife, who has her own dying dress boutique, when she discovers what he’s up to, she helps take the business upscale and make better use of the internet. It’s all very funny and satirical. There are a number of surprise twists along the way. If you’re not squeamish about reading the details of all the various perversities everyday folk can get into, you’ll thoroughly enjoy it. What makes the book so unique and fun to read is that it doesn’t portray the seedy underbelly of a criminal activity, but instead stays grounded in the mundane realities of this ordinary guy’s attempts to run an illegal operation while trying to pay his mortgage and save up enough to throw his son a decent bar mitzvah. There are also enough surprise twists thrown in to keep it a page turner. I enjoyed it so much I’m going to read Greenland’s other novels.



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The beginning is a bit harsh. Story is interesting, unusual, want to find out how it ends.

The snapshot of the marriage shows a very familar relationship that could use more attention, but like how the wife reacted. The motherinlaw is a hoot!

Makes you think anyone can run a brothel! ( )

I literally read this book in one night. In tone, it reminded me of A Confederacy of Dunces -- particularly the prologue, which opens, "Julian Ripps was too fat to be reclining in a hot tub between a pair of naked women, unless he was rich or they were prostitutes." Fortunately for the reader, we don't have to spend too much time with Julian: within four and a half pages, he's dead, leaving his escort service to his estranged brother Marcus. Marcus is a likable protagonist; your not-quite-excruciatingly-average middle class family man, whose factory management job has just been shipped to China. Comedy ensues on cue. While there's a lot of cynicism here, and a bleak edge to much of the humour, it's leavened by the fact that Marcus emerges as a genuinely reflective and thoughtful guy. The novel is bookended by bar mitzvahs: partly a joke, partly a serious reflection on the meaning and stages of life.