Reason magazine reviews “comic thriller” St. Nic, Inc.

Books editor Jesse Walker reviews St. Nic, Inc. in it’s January 2015 issue of Reason magazine (on p. 60), calling the novel a “comic thriller.” Walker writes:

If Santa Claus existed, the feds would probably mistake the operation for a drug cartel. So goes the premise of St. Nic, Inc. (Southern Yellow Pine), S.R. Staley’s comic thriller about a Drug Enforcement Administration operation that nearly takes Christmas down.

Staley, a frequent contributor to reason, teaches economics at Florida State when he isn’t writing novels. He draws on both careers when describing NP Enterprise, an Arctic software firm and toy distribution network run by one Nicole Klaas. Nicole, the fourth Klaas to run the family business, relies heavily on the skills of the world’s little people, for whom the company’s polar community is a haven against the discrimination they face down south.

Their cash transactions catch the government’s eye, and soon a federal agent is convinced he’s found a nest of narco-traffickers. He hasn’t spotted any actual drugs, but the pattern looks unmistakable. And then a bona fide War on Christmas begins.

 

 

 

 

 

Author: SR Staley
SR Staley has one more than 11 literary awards for his fiction and nonfiction writing. He is on the full-time faculty of the College and Social Sciences and Public Policy at Florida State University as well as a film critic and research fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. His award-winning Pirate of Panther Bay series (syppublishing.com) has won awards in historical fiction, mainstream & literary fiction, young adult fiction, and reached the finals in women's fiction. His most recent book is "The Beatles and Economics: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and the Making of a Cultural Revolution" due out in April 2020 (Routledge).