"A terrific satire that lampoons hardboiled detectives from novels and TV"
Wannabe sleuth Harvey Mapes works the graveyard guard
shift at the exclusive Bel Vista Estates in Camarillo,
California. His enjoyment in life comes from hard boiled
detective novels and TV shows and occasionally his
neighbor of six years Carol has sex with him though she
holds out for a better guy than Harvey is. Wealthy resident Cyril Parkus hires Harvey to follow his
wife Lauren because he wants no paper trail preferring to
pay in cash and easy to obtain reports. Harvey enjoys
trailing the beautiful Lauren. He soon realizes she is
being blackmailed. He also gets into a car accident with
an illegal and receives a beating from the blackmailer yet
Harvey in spite of a diet of Advil and Pepto enjoys what
he is doing encouraged by Carol who sees enthusiasm in him
for the first time. That is until the case spins deadly
and Harvey is relived of further duty. This is a terrific satire that lampoons hardboiled
detectives from novels and TV as Harvey imitates them only
to get beaten up and more. The story line is action-
packed, but contains a tongue in cheek look at the sub-
genre. THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE is a pure gold
winner that leaves the audience re-looking those car
chases and human tails that is standard success in
literature and television. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 15, 2005
SummaryHarvey Mapes is a twenty-nine-year-old security guard who
spends his nights in a guard shack outside a gated
community in Southern California, reading detective
novels, watching TVLand reruns, and waiting for his life
to finally start . . . which happens when Cyril Parkus,
one of the wealthy residents, asks Harvey to follow his
beautiful wife Lauren.
The lowly security guard jumps at the opportunity to
fulfill his private eye fantasies and use everything he's
learned from Spenser, Magnum, and Mannix. But things don't
exactly go according to the books . . . or the reruns. As
Harvey fumbles and stumbles through his first
investigation, he discovers that the differences between
fiction and reality can be deadly.
With the help of his mortgage-broker neighbor and
occasional lover Carol, Harvey uncovers a blackmail plot
that takes a sudden and unexpectedly tragic turn . . .
plunging him into a world of violence, deception, and
murder . . . and forcing him to discover what it really
takes to be a private eye.
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