Bunny Slippers

A beefy satirical thriller packed with revenge, intrigue, subterfuge, and destruction that’s deliciously over the top

Imagine a secret guild for mercenary assassins as old as Freemasonry, part of an organization possessing militaristic arms and other resources on the scale of nations. This is MARI. It’s capable of mobilizing those vast resources to destabilize a chosen world superpower on relatively short notice. A conspiracy theorist’s dream.

Yet MARI can possibly be bested by its best—a man with the code name Bunny—on whom MARI has placed an exorbitant bounty—“$10,000,000 for Bunny Tail, $5,000,000 bonus for Bunny Slippers”—to entice its thousands of assassins. In as stark an example of putting one’s eggs in one basket, MARI finds itself vulnerable. For Bunny over the years has become integral to the design of almost every device, vehicle, structure, strategy, etc. He knows MARI inside and out.

What instigates the bounty is Bunny’s refusal to kill an executive, a client of his security software company. Bunny, like many of his fellow assassins, is highly successful outside the guild. Their ventures span multiple industries and generally complement MARI’s aims. Except for Bunny, the conflicts of interest are getting complicated. This isn’t his first instance of insubordination, just the one that pushes MARI over the edge as they:

“. . . initially thought that MARI would have access to all the information that Bunny’s security systems would be protecting. That somehow, Bunny would eventually turn the keys over to them and let them use the wealth of knowledge that his systems had access to, to further MARI’s goals. But in the end, that wasn’t the case. And from MARI’s perspective, he had turned against them.”

Bunny adopts a best defense is a strong offense approach by going after his pursuers. He recruits a sidekick in nephew Darcell, a rawer, brasher, less experienced version of himself. Later Bunny involves his highly capable, oversexed main squeeze, Kitty, a renowned fashion designer who moonlights as a jewel thief. A David versus Goliath proposition despite Bunny’s inside knowledge.

He must rely on superior physical and other advantages to stay ahead of MARI. A master of disguises, his ability to travel incognito provides mobility. And by letting the mercurial Darcell choose targets, it foils MARI’s algorithms—they know him well too—thus their movements are hard to predict. Bunny needs this because:

“When two members of the same assassin’s guild or opposing guilds recognize each other in public or in private in a chance meeting, the most important thing to recognize and understand is that there is no such thing as a chance meeting between assassins. If you’re not the one with the assignment, then it is with total certainty that you are the assignment and that the other assassin is there to kill you.”

The pair exploits these advantages to breed mayhem with panache. Bunny and his protégé are artistes when it comes to killing. They devise increasingly intricate, nasty ways to dispense key former allies. This serves to continually escalate the battle to cataclysmic effect, including a hilarious visual near the end involving a piano.

This is a comic novel with satire that works on several levels. It wittily parodies the likes of James Bond and even Austin Powers. MARI is like an inverted version of the British MI-6 as might be operated by SPECTRE. There’s even a counterpart to Moneypenny, with whom the protagonist has an endearing platonic relationship, albeit now as enemies.

But where parody sets the stage, excess and exaggeration dominate. Whether it’s the size and global extent of MARI or the virility, corporate savvy, and physical abilities of Bunny. He’s an electric character who does tend to overshadow Darcell and others, including those comprising the leadership of MARI as they contend with the Bunny situation.

That said, some of the best parts are the richly in-depth sketches of Bunny’s ex-colleagues in the lead up to each encounter. Their histories make their characters shine brightly. At least until Bunny casts his foreboding shadow and the violence ensues. The juxtaposition of long-earned success and potential sudden failure is highly entertaining.

The novel works best when the satire sticks to a more earnest level. It loses steam in scenes that reach for comedy through repartee, particularly with Darcell whose maturity at times drops. He then comes off like an annoying teenager. His more mature, well-educated side is more appealing and along with the younger man’s traits complements Bunny’s in a kind of Batman-Robin dynamic.

Bunny Slippers is full of cinematic sprawl that would make it the blockbuster of blockbusters as a live action film. That is, if anyone could afford to make it. Underneath the carnage and rubble of destruction, this is a fast and fun novel.