Donnybrook

Bill’s debut novel (after his short story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana) trails another ruck of miscreants as they cook, shoot, snort, screw, punch, and head-butt their way across the Ohio River to backwoods gangster Bellmount McGill’s annual donnybrook, a three-day, bare-knuckle free-for-all. Wanting the big-money pot to make a new life for his kids and their Oxy-addicted mother, tavern brawler Jarhead Earl robs a local gun shop for the $1,000 entry fee. Double-crossing tweaker Ned Newton steals his stake from crank cooker Chainsaw Angus. Ned and the dealer’s hateful sister, Liz, haul Angus’s product to the ‘brook, which promises to make them a mint. Left for dead, Angus tears a trail of mayhem in their pursuit, trying to shake Fu Xi, a debt-collecting torture artist, and Ross Whalen, a vengeful deputy sheriff with secrets more vile than the acid burns and chainsaw accidents that flare up along the way. Waiting for them all is Purcell, a prophet of the johnboat who foresees calamity, strives for good, and whose appearance in Jarhead’s life suggests a possible sequel. Fun and fast but with a prose so pulpy it sometimes turns to mush, this book lands its best punches below the belt. Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary Agency. (Mar.)