The Medici Iris: A Tale of Murder, Sex, Drugs...and Horticulture

Crime doesn't pay, but gardening might... Wes Barino has problems. Problems with his job, his money, his girl and his head. His life is steadily going nowhere, and the only breaks in the monotony are the nights of mayhem he shares with his screwball best friend, Scott, and creaming unsuspecting challengers at Quiztouch, a barroom trivia game. But through seemingly random and ridiculous circumstances, Wes gets sucked into a bizarre spiral of events involving everything from the mafia, drug trafficking, crooked cops and the crime-ridden streets of Newark, to trivia championships, strippers, an order of monks . . . and the Medici Iris, an exotic flower that has no business blooming in Wes's scraggly back yard. The iris brings Wes closer to his hidden, ancient Medici heritage, a bloodline that has imbued him both with amazing cognitive powers and a nasty seizure disorder. Sought for centuries, this unique red iris is a priceless link to the Italian family, and is the inspiration that Wes needs to change the course of his life, albeit with possibly fatal results As the maelstrom of events swirls around him, accelerating to the climax, Wes realizes that he must protect the precious iris and win the Quiztouch championships, despite getting himself caught in a federal racketeering sting. The arrests of the Jersey City and Hoboken mayors put a target on Wes Barino's back as he flees across the country with a bag of evidence, the last of the iris rhizomes and the longshot chance of winning the Quiztouch Championships. Can Wes survive? Will the mafia catch him? The FBI? Crime doesn't pay, but gardening might... The Medici Iris is a darkly humorous, character-driven novel with a few forays into murder, drug trafficking, sex...and horticulture.

Max Medford is an upstanding cancer researcher by day and noir humorist and writer by night. He has written numerous short stories and draws inspiration from the quirky characters encountered through acquaintance. You may find him at times, on the farthest stool of the northernmost bar on Long Beach Island, laying out concepts on cocktail napkins, which mostly fall to the floor unnoticed. Buy him a drink and he might listen to your story... This is his first full novel.