Kiss the Devil Good Night

Jittery Iraq War vet Bill Derringer, the narrator of this picaresque story of antic insanity from Woods (A Death in Mexico), and his wife, Edie, decide on a whim to drive from their home in Atlanta to Orlando, Fla., to attend the murder trial of a woman accused of killing her baby and maybe eating it. They stay in Orlando with Edie’s Aunt Ida, who persuades the couple to help her rob a gun show. After the heist, Edie and her aunt leave Bill behind and run off to share a lesbian relationship in Mexico. Five years after his conviction for armed robbery, Bill leaves prison for a Miami halfway house with nebulous plans for revenge. When he gets a chance to look for William Burroughs’s long-lost suitcase somewhere in Mexico for a collector, with the added possibility of finding Edie and Aunt Ida, he and Jane Ryder, his new companion from the halfway house, fly to Mexico City. There they have a series of barely related adventures involving gratuitous sex, death, and mayhem. Fans of offbeat noir will find a lot to like. (Nov.)