I recently read Smith's Yellow Medicine (reviewed here) (and I still blame Bill Crider); something about it made me take note, and I grabbed a copy of Choke when I saw it was $0.99.
Written as sort of a riff on Nero Wolfe (a character I've read nothing of), it's a homage, but written for the "internet porn" generation. Our Wolfe stand-in is Octavia VanderPlatts, wealthy, a genius, and a "fat b****" in her words. When her friend, poetry professor Mick Thooft, needs helps in his impending divorce, she wants to "...punish the b****". Thooft initially says no, since he is still holding out hope his marriage can be saved, but then his wife wants the house, and has paperwork that he signed giving it to her (which he doesn't remember signing!).
Octavia takes control, though Mick keeps helping, but usually making it more difficult. We find out there's a swingers ring on campus (run by the provost, and he collects tapes of people in action for protection) and almost everyone but Mick is aware, and taking part. It looks like Mick might win, when someone tips off the cops to Octavia greenhouse full of marijuana, and then Mick's new love turns up dead, and his wife missing. With the feds involved, and Octavia's money frozen, things look bleak, with only Octavia's butler Jennings, her chef Harriet, and the amazon like lawyer Pamela on their side.
Smith certainly seems to be having fun, in a gonzo, no holds barred sort of way. I'm certainly willing to see what else he does (and it looks like the Yellow Medicine sequel Hogdoggin' is now out in a Kindle edition).
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