Six Hours Past Thursday

Rating:
Summary: intelligent writing
Review: "Sans religious zealotry, this is a story of sin. Practical sin. Everyday working sin, and it is set in 1966, for a reason..." (Excerpt taken from the prologue of, Six Hours Past Thursday.)

Payne has effectively created a character full of flaws-- someone you love to hate in Six Hours Past Thursday, a fictional tale of crime and "sin." In fact, "Death of a Salesman" character Willy Lohman has nothing on Jack Payne's: loathsome, womanizing, dirty-dealing protagonist, Steve Draves.

Packed with Draves's exploits in both business and with the vapid, vacuous, vixens that occupy the female lead positions in the story; the first one hundred or so pages of Six Hours Past Thursday, were difficult to get through. Additionally, the extensive business- related dialogue was about as interesting to read as listening to actor Ben Stein read back- dated copies of The Wall Street Journal's stock reports would be. Fortunately, the book begins to take off around page two hundred and all of the blather the reader endures in the first portion of the book begins to make more sense.

Good authors can make an audience feel. What I felt most during the course of reading Six Hours Past Thursday was anger and blatant disdain for the main characters, but I did feel. In addition to his ability to evoke feelings ( particularly anger and disgust) from readers through flawless, intelligent writing, Payne makes noteworthy social and political points throughout the novel that make it well worth the asking price. If you are up for an interesting social commentary with well-written, low-life criminals as the main characters and you are willing to give the book a chance after the first few hundred pages, you won't be disappointed in Six Hours Past Thursday.

Review by Kate St.Amour of BookReview.com.

Rating:
Summary: "You Almost Come to Love This Bastard..."
Review: "Six Hours Past Thursday," by Jack Payne, USA, Impact Books J+J, 2004 - ISBN 1-59113-503-8 - pbk, 304 pp., is an intense and troubling revelation of an imperious, conniving, flauting but outwardly successful business broker, Steve Draves, who wants it all and who risks being out on a limb and at risk of cutting too many of the wrong branches. Unbeknownst to his wife Betty, he secretly amasses a small fortune he boastfully reveals to his best but inept straggler friend Mark.

Though "happily" married with children, Steve has one too many addictions: he (1) is a fantasizing philanderer with a proclivity for Junoesque bosomy women he meets in bars or the workplace, (2) becomes regularly immersed in Martinis, (3) has inventive machiavellian hustler skills and (4) is overly narcissistic.

As is true with most addicts and addictions, "just one or two more and it's quits," Steve manages to jump most of the hurdles and run most of the bases -- but he is stopped short at home plate. And, as in Nature, there can be that eerie calm before the storms.

Payne's novel is itself addicting. It provides an interesting itinerary of places, a litany of characters and revealing of some tragic consequences of the imperfections of the human condition. Steve is somebody you would like to hate but you also almost come to love this bastard whose Ego got laid by his Id. The story line is not one to be easily forgotten. The author is very well-published but this is his 1st novel which comes off well -- I found but 4 minor mispellings. The price is right. We don't learn the meaning of the title until the last chapter...do read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Steve Draves has it all, and then..............
Review: Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Six hours past Thursday
AUTHOR: Jack Payne
Steve Draves, womanizer and out an out scoundrel resides in the bustling city of Chicago in the mid 60's. Married and the father of twins, he never misses an opportunity to seduce a beautiful woman. Steve's business premises are set up to fool the unsuspecting. Doors to nowhere, taped sounds of a busy office playing behind the couch and a sexy secretary, all give the impression of a successful business- the perfect setting for a con man.
Draves hooks up with a mobster, in what could be the deal of a lifetime. An island off the coast of Miami, soon to become the gambling capital of the Caribbean is at the heart of the deal. Everything is falling into place until Draves bumbling secretary makes a grave mistake that sends Steve and his con spiraling downward.
Steve's philandering leads him on a very shaky course. He finally meets his match in Nina, the mobster's daughter who stalks him, refusing to take no for an answer. Steve knows that his marriage, not to mention his life, is in danger if he doesn't get rid of her. He turns to his best friend Mark for help; making another disastrous mistake.
Author Jack Payne has a talent for story telling; his characters are filled with human foibles and character flaws and his plot takes some interesting twists and turns. A well written, entertaining read that keeps the reader involved until the startling end. Author of fifty- five business books; Jack Payne shines with this, his first novel.
Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews.


Rating:
Summary: Steve Draves has it all, and then..........
Review: Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Six hours past Yhursday
AUTHOR: Jack Payne
Steve Draves, womanizer and out an out scoundrel resides in the bustling city of Chicago in the mid 60's. Married and the father of twins, he never misses an opportunity to seduce a beautiful woman. Steve's business premises are set up to fool the unsuspecting. Doors to nowhere, taped sounds of a busy office playing behind the couch and a sexy secretary, all give the impression of a successful business- the perfect setting for a con man.
Draves hooks up with a mobster, in what could be the deal of a lifetime. An island off the coast of Miami, soon to become the gambling capital of the Caribbean is at the heart of the deal. Everything is falling into place until Draves bumbling secretary makes a grave mistake that sends Steve and his con spiraling downward.
Steve's philandering leads him on a very shaky course. He finally meets his match in Nina, the mobster's daughter who stalks him, refusing to take no for an answer. Steve knows that his marriage, not to mention his life, is in danger if he doesn't get rid of her. He turns to his best friend Mark for help; making another disastrous mistake.
Author Jack Payne has a talent for story telling; his characters are filled with human foibles and character flaws and his plot takes some interesting twists and turns. A well written, entertaining read that keeps the reader involved until the startling end. Author of fifty- five business books; Jack Payne shines with this, his first novel.
Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews.

Rating:
Summary: A Finely Honed Examination of Maelstrom of the 60s
Review: Jack Payne understands the dollar, has professional experience in dealing with it, in understanding the mythology of it, has observed the volcanic eruption of obsession with it. This kind of insider's knowledge, when coupled with the ability to write terse imagery and pull exaggerated characters out of a seemingly endless barrage of imagination, places Payne in a fully loaded position to deliver a gripping and harshly brutal novel out of that peculiar period of time from 1966 to 1968 that changed our world indelibly.

SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY pummels us along the journey of the transformation of a character - Steve Draves - whose double life (the 1966 standard of married man with kids and wife enjoying a successful climb up the ladder of success versus the deceptive lothario who would cheat anyone at anything if he ended up on top) leads him to the Don Juanian end. This story makes big time crime understandable, adultery seem mild, greed and lust seem almost passé, and the insatiable desires of a man obsessed with his own delusions feel like someone we know.

Payne writes very well. His use of blending sentence fragments and extended flow of thought adds to the pounding rhythm of a story that the fact that we don't like the main character an incidental finding in the manner in which this story seduces and unfolds at breakneck speed.

Many of his secondary characters are well fleshed out and identifiable as they intersect in Draves self-forged path toward destruction. But the more important aspect of what Payne has done in writing this novel is make us all take a closer look at what was happening in our lives, and what has happened TO our lives, since that fission that occurred between 1966 and 1968. And that is an aspect of any book, let alone a first novel, that signals the arrival of a writer of distinction. One hopes that next time around the main character, here the 'Don Juan' of the bedroom and the moneybags, will be more a character about whom we can feel some empathy. But then that may be another of Payne's intended points..... Grady Harp, January 2005

Rating:
Summary: Best-laid plans often go awry
Review: SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is a morality tale for the new millennium if anyone, who's wheelin' an' dealin' and acquiring Stuff, has the time and inclination to read it.

Steve Draves is a Chicago business broker whose self-proclaimed philosophy is:

"... if you play your cards right, you get ... exposure to a wide variety of situations where you can gouge, fleece, make side deals, and work out kick-back arrangements."

And the object, as regurgitated by Steve's friend/student, Mark, is to:

"... see how close you can crowd up to the edge of the law without breaking it. As long as you keep your business within that framework - keep your nose technically clean, if not morally - you can make a fortune, perfectly legally and safely."

In his professional and personal life, Draves isn't so much immoral as amoral. He won't break the law, but will utilize every legal scam in his repertoire to increase his financial worth, now approaching $2 million, which, in Steve's world of 1966, is a fair piece of change. And while Steve deeply loves his wife, Betty, he'll cheat on her any chance he gets. (Blonde Betty, built like a brick outhouse and dumb as a post, is selflessly dedicated to her husband. It's enough to make a radical feminist want to kill.)

From past experience, Draves believes his life-changing good luck appears precisely at the end of 5-year cycles. The next is imminent. True, he hasn't had recent success getting to first base with Tina, Sandy, or his secretary, Deby. But, business has been good, though there is that risky association with the hard-nosed mobster, Johnny Patiense. But certainly, after a, um, no-nonsense conference with Johnny's security chief and quality assurance manager, Tony and Frank respectively, Steve's life takes a new direction. Redemption, perhaps.

As a fictional framework within which author Jack Payne educates the reader, SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is first rate. However, whether the narrative should serve as a how-to-do or how-to-avoid primer of shady business practices, Payne leaves to his audience. Since justice of a sort is served by the book's conclusion, I gather that Payne's preference is that it be the latter.

I'd award the book five stars for conceptual cleverness, but only three for plot credibility and the ability of its "hero" to engage the sympathy of the reader. Indeed, Drave is such an oil slick that I hardly cared what became of him in what was, for me, an overly contrived finale. The readers' sympathies will likely remain with the secondary characters that Steve uses and manipulates, especially the women in his life. This seems to violate what I learned in high school English Lit, i.e., that a necessary component of fiction is a major protagonist for whom one can cheer. But, never mind, SIX HOURS PAST THURSDAY is a worthwhile read for that next flight out of town to close the Big Deal.


Rating:
Summary: Six Hours Past Thursday
Review: Six Hours Past Thursday is the story of Steve Draves. To outsiders, Steve is a loving husband and successful Broker at Commercial Opportunities Unlimited in Chicago. However, there's more to Steve Draves than meets the eye. Steve is a drunken womanizer with a sexy wife, a few girlfriends, and a couple of potential dates. Moreover, Commercial Opportunities Unlimited is a front for several schemes, side payoffs, and outright shady deals. Steve wants it all and it looks like he's about to get everything he's every wanted.

Six Hours Past Thursday is an entertaining look into the world of greed and sin as seen in 1966. The character of Steve Draves is both complex and deep. Furthermore, the assessment of this character is completed without limiting internal dialogue to politically correct models. Furthermore, all of the other characters are coloured by Steve's image of these people. This is especially true of the women who tend to be seen as brainless sex objects who exist only for Steve's pleasure. These extremely frank aspects of this story allow the reader valuable insight into the mind of this highly flawed character while enjoying a laugh or two at his expense.


Rating:
Summary: The Machiavelli of Underhanded Business
Review: There's something about a conman. From the charming but conniving Starbuck in N. Richard Nash's classic play `The Rainmaker,' to Milo Minderbinder, the larcenous Army Mess Officer in Joseph Heller's `Catch 22,' there's just something about a smooth-talking swindler.

Jack Payne's new novel, Six Hours Past Thursday, brings a new face to the pantheon of tricksters. Move over Henry Gondorff, here comes Steve Draves. Steve has it all: a beautiful wife, wonderful children, a fat bank account, and the sort of best friend that he can trust with his life. What more could a man want? In Steve's case - everything. More money, more booze, and every attractive woman who crosses his path. Steve is the master of the tricky deal, and a maestro of the doublecross. It's amazing to watch him work, as he skims, squeezes and strong arms his way to a fortune, all without ever quite breaking the law. Everything is going great until the mob gets involved...

Jack Payne brings a lifetime of exceptional business acumen to this novel, and his insider knowledge comes through in the details of every shady deal. His writing is smooth, engaging, and deceptively powerful. But you won't recognize the true nature of Jack Payne's skill until you realize that you love Steve Draves, even as you're compiling your list of reasons to despise him.

Jeff Edwards, author of "Torpedo: A Surface Warfare Thriller"