Just read it. I wasn't going to and then realised that I had read everything except Tony and a few stand alones I'm not so interested in and... yeah, got caught up in it. I didn't think it'd be for me so much, but it really was like a lot of your other stories, with the clown bits not toooo overpowering, main character going through the wringer, etc.
It'll be interesting to see where you go from this - is it about murder detectiving, does it always involve a clown apart from the main character? I could see you doing a sequel where the guy takes a holiday cruise, possibly with the Great Mantooth and his wife - it was mentioned early in the story as one of the jobs he applied for, but yeah - the hotel being stable he takes a cruise, murder happens and intrigue ensues...
Then the third either goes back to the hotel or he gets a job back as a professor and the FBI calls him in because there is a clown crime and he's a subject matter expert... I don't know if you'd want to get him away from the whole hotel, family, etc though... I kind of like the idea of him embracing that. Maybe he's working the hotel/casino and a History professors conference takes over and something happens and here he is the clown professor in amongst his previous peers? That'd be kind of hilarious and horrible.
I'd also be interesting in seeing something with Sidney and his clan happening further - because I felt kind of bad for them, criminals or not - Felicity seemed nice enough and driven to everything by circumstances... and yeah, Carlos and all didn't want to think bad of Sidney as a previous mentor, and he returned Moretti's money quickly enough... I get they had medical bills but it just ... it seemed something else was going on there and yeah for a minute I thought it was Moretti testing his security using the family, given he showed up, they returned the money and Sidney was so trusted... but yeah...
Anyway... just my thinking - seeing what you've done, you've probably got the next 30 books already planned out and I'm rambling, as I do.
