Gutshot Straight
By Lou Berney
(Harper Paperbacks, Paperback, 9780061766343, 304pp.)
Publication Date: February 2011
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover
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Professional wheel man Charles "Shake" Bouchon is too nice a guy for the life he's led and not nice enough for any other. Fresh out of prison, he's supposed to deliver a package to Vegas strip-club owner Dick "the Whale" Moby and pick up a briefcase for Shake's former boss and lover, Alexandra Ilandryan, pakhan of L.A.'s Armenian mob. But when the "package" turns out to be Gina, a wholesome young housewife, Shake decides to set her free—a move as noble as it is boneheaded.
Now Shake and Gina are on the run in Panama—looking to unload the briefcase's unusual contents while outmaneuvering two angry crime bosses, a heartbroken ex-linebacker, and a sadistic thug plagued by erectile superfunction. And Shake's learning that Gina is less wholesome and more complicated than he initially imagined.
The author of The Road to Bobby Joe and Other Stories, Lou Berney won a Pushcart Prize for his story "Stupid Girl." His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, New England Review, and other publications. He's written screenplays and created television pilots for Warner Brothers, Focus Features, Fox, and ABC, among others, and he lives in Oklahoma City.
“[A] fast-moving caper…smoothly blends humor, action and romantic frisson.”
-Publishers Weekly
“An exciting read you can’t put down. A definite must read.”
-Abraham Rodriguez, 2009 Dashiell Hammett Award finalist and author of South by South Bronx
“Virtually every character is memorable, and the chemistry between Shake and Gina is brilliant. The plot turns are constant, and the dialogue is sharp. The bad guys are wonderfully scary, and the locales are vividly drawn. Elmore Leonard might be very pleased to call GUTSHOT STRAIGHT his own.”
-Booklist (starred review)
“A literary sucker punch -- surprising, funny, effervescent. It’s a cocktail that won’t let you off your barstool till closing.”
-Ted Griffin, screenwriter of OCEAN'S ELEVEN, MATCHSTICK MEN and BEST LAID PLANS
“GUTSHOT STRAIGHT has my vote for, among other things, Best McGuffin Ever. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder or quirkier, here comes the scene where... well, I better not give that away. Energetic, droll, and wheezingly funny.”
-Stephen Harrigan, New York Times bestselling author of Gates of the Alamo and Challenger Park
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