February 13, 2023
Set principally “in the middle of nowhere Ohio,” this uneven crime novel from Welsh-Huggins (the Andy Hayes mysteries) opens with Pryor, a malicious hoodlum, shooting Myles, a former employee, the day after Myles’s release from prison, because Myles said he wanted to go straight. (Myles was serving time for a bank robbery from which “somehow Pryor walked free.”) As Myles fights for his life in the hospital, plucky Penny, a costume shop clerk and the mother of his child, realizes that the only way to keep her man safe is to track down and kill Pryor. Her dogged quest for revenge fuels most of the action. Meanwhile, Pryor has set his eye on robbing a farmer who’s rumored to be hoarding a fortune, as well as plotting a bank heist. Along the way, he makes sure to inflict as much random cruelty as possible. To complicate matters, J.P., a young deputy with the Darby County Sheriff’s Office, who’s relentlessly bullied by his fellow officers, is on a collision course with Pryor and Penny. Clean prose makes up only in part for a sluggish plot that harbors no surprises. This reads like humorless Elmore Leonard. Agent: Victorica Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary.