Chocolate Lizards A Novel Author:Cole Thompson When a Harvard-educated aspiring actor loses all of his cash during a bus-ride poker game, he finds himself stranded in Abilene, Texas, broke and desperate. Enter Merle Luskey, a hard-drinkin', tough-talkin', oil-drillin', woman-lovin' wild-catter who just happens to have a job opening. About to lose his oil rigs and his ranch to the bank (wit... more »h the help of an outrageously corrupt sheriff), Merle has a proposition for his new friend: he need a "rat killer," someone smart enough to help him outwit the bank, the sheriff, and a rival drilling company in a frantic race to hit pay dirt before the foreclosure goes through. What ensues is a rip-roaring conflagration of unbelievably vibrant characters, including a drunken cattle rancher who owns the land that Merle wants to drill on--and also owns every issue of Playboy every published, speaking so fondly about the centerfolds you'd think they were kin. And meet Tex-Ann, a busty gum-snapping blonde imported form Dallas to--ahem--persuade the cattle rancher to sign on the dotted line.« less