BKMT READING GUIDES
Tilt-a-Whirl
by Chris Grabenstein
Published: 2006-04-24
Paperback : 321 pages
Paperback : 321 pages
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There isn’t much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police ...
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Introduction
There isn’t much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer’s worth of rest and relaxation to help him forget the horrors of war. Instead, Ceepak will head up the murder investigation. He is partnered with Danny Boyle, a 24-year-old part-time summer cop who doesn’t carry a gun and only works with the police by day so he has enough pocket money left over to play with his beach buddies at night.
In the first novel in a new series written in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen’s work, the Tilt-A-Whirl murder pushes Ceepak’s deep sense of honor and integrity to the limits, as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.
In the first novel in a new series written in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen’s work, the Tilt-A-Whirl murder pushes Ceepak’s deep sense of honor and integrity to the limits, as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.
Excerpt
Some guys have a code they live by, some guys don't.John Ceepak? He has a code.
Me? No code. Not unless you count my ZIP code or something.
I took this job because I'm twenty-four and Sea Haven is, as you might've guessed, a sunny haven situated by the side of the sea - an eighteen-mile-long barrier island crammed with motels and beach houses and bait shacks and ice cream shops called stuff like "Do Me A Flavor" and the "Scoop Sloop." ...
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Discussion Questions
by Charlene Floyd, PhD1. Danny says his only code is his zip code. Do you agree? [p. 1]
2. Early on in the investigation, Ceepak says, "I harbor no resentments. We all make mistakes. That's why my pencil has an eraser. I make mistakes, too."
[p. 73]
Do you really think that Ceepak 'harbors no resentments'? What mistakes has he made?
Sure, pencils have erasers, but can Ceepak, or anyone, erase the kind of mistakes that matter?
3. How important is one's personal history in explaining, shaping and even excusing his /her current actions?
4. Which character would you like to take out to dinner and why? (If you chose Danny Boyle in the first round, do a second round.)
5. "But when I was a kid, I loved how the Tilt-A-Whirl could surprise you. How it spun you around one way and the next time you hit the exact same spot, it spun you around some way completely different . . . . You never knew what to expect next. . . . [My math] teacher called it 'mind-jangling unpredictability'." [p. 25]
Does Danny's description of this amusement park ride fit as a metaphor for his life, Ashley's life, Ceepak's life and/or for the situation in which they find themselves?
Does it work for your life? Why or why not?
6. Ceepak is fond of saying, "It's all good" even when it isn't. What do you think he means?
7. Would you like to spend a week (or more) in 'sunderful, funderful' Sea Haven?
Which places would you visit (Ship John Lighthouse, Sunnyside Playland, Cap'n Scrubby's, Boardwalk Books.
. .)? Where would you eat/drink (Pancake Palace, The Sand Bar, Chesterfields, The Frosty Mug. . . )? Would you stay in The Mussel Beach Motel, The Smuggler's Cove or perhaps rent a house along Maple Avenue?
How would you describe relations between the locals and the tourists?
8. What are the key elements of Ceepak's Code? What other "Codes" are at work in the book?
9. Ceepak is clearly a mentor figure for Danny, similarly Dr. Sandy McDaniels 'wrote the book' that Ceepak uses. Who has helped guide your life?
How do these relationships compare to Ceepak's relationship to Chief Cosgrove?
10. Bruce Springsteen's music creates the soundtrack of this novel. Is Ceepak a likely Springsteen fan? Do you think that the use of this music enhances the plot and its characters? Why or why not?
11. How is the situation faced by Ceepak in Sea Haven similar to that faced by the soldiers still stationed in Iraq?
12. Throughout the book women are depicted in a variety of roles--including waitress, lawyer, lover, mother, daughter, police officer, forensics expert, friend. Do you feel the author's treatment of women is fair and/or accurate? What message will the female reader glean from this book regarding the role of women in contemporary society? The male reader?
13. In many respects Tilt A Whirl is a coming of age story, a recognition that childhood, and in some sense summer, must always come to an end. With this in mind, compare and contrast the lives of Danny and Ashley.
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
A note from Chris Grabstein: TILT A WHIRL, like all “new” ideas, started when two old ideas bumped into and got tangled up with each other. Thought #1: September 11, 2001. I, like so many others, marveled at the bravery of the New York City firefighters and cops who ran up the staircases of the World Trade Center when everybody else was running down. What makes some men ignore their survival instincts to help others? Why, as Bruce Springsteen (The Boss gets quoted quite often by the characters in TILT A WHIRL) puts it, do “love and duty call” them “someplace higher?” That thinking led me to my protagonist, John Ceepak – a former MP just back from Iraq who joins the police force in a quiet seaside resort town. Ceepak is a good man. A truly honorable hero. A modern day knight guided by a code of chivalry. Ceepak will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do. Thought #2: Tacky Tourist Towns. Tilt A Whirl takes place down the Jersey Shore in a tourist town called Sea Haven - the kind of seaside resort best pictured on a map filled with squiggly cartoon drawings of shops and attractions with names like King Putt Golf, The Pancake Palace, and Cap'n Scrubby's Car Wash. I love going down to the Jersey Shore, any place that has a restaurant called "The Rusty Scupper" where they serve cold bottles of beer in an aluminum bucket and mountains of peel-and-eat shrimp in red plastic baskets. And I loved putting my hero John Ceepak into this world – a place where absolutely nothing is as it seems, where everything is fake or packaged into a snow globe so you can take it home when your vacation ends. It’s a world of false fronts hiding seamier underbellies. A world built on lies that can send a truly good man’s soul spinning.? It makes for a wild ride. And that’s what I hope readers will take away from TILT A WHIRL: what happens when a truly good man is misled by his less noble counterparts?Book Club Recommendations
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