What Is Time to a Pig?

Set in 2027, Straley’s delightfully absurd third Cold Storage novel (after 2014’s Cold Storage, Alaska) takes place five years after the end of a brief war in which a poorly aimed missile fired by the North Koreans dropped unexploded warheads around southeastern Alaska. None of this means much to Gloomy Knob, who’s been incarcerated for seven years in a prison near the town of Cold Storage for his sister’s murder, until some well-meaning folks snatch him from an off-site work detail in the mistaken belief that he can locate an unaccounted for nuclear warhead. Though Gloomy is willing to help save Cold Storage and its inhabitants, including his wife, there’s one minor problem: he has no idea where the bomb is. Unhinged by his newfound freedom, Gloomy is nearly as unstable as the warhead he has been sprung to find. Desperate to return to prison to continue his sentence, Gloomy begins remembering too much for his own good—and the good of others. Straley upturns the Alaskan landscape like Carl Hiassen flipped Florida with wildly imaginative stories and droll characters. (Feb.)