Stray Dogs - Hardcover

Ridley, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345413458 ISBN 13: 9780345413451

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1997

Synopsis

"It's the heat that makes you crazy. I don't know what it is, but it works that way for man and animal alike. I've seen some peculiar things on a hot day too. I've seen a scorpion sting itself to death. It just keeps drivin' its tail into its body again and again. A little killer killing itself. And what a man'll do on a hot day. A man could get his self killed just for rubbing shoulders with another. . . ."

A loner, a drifter, a gambler--John Stewart asks little of life. But when his '64 Mustang busts a radiator hose in the middle of the empty Nevada desert, he prays to God, Buddha, L. Ron. And rolls into the tiny town of Sierra. Where he finds . . . nothing. A gas station whose former owner is lying low in the cemetery. A strip of barren, dust-blown store fronts. A truck stop cafe with more flies than customers.

Stewart wants out. Sucker-punched in a rigged poker game, he's got to get to Vegas to settle a debt. Or else.

Then in walks Grace, a seductive knockout who can read fortunes in faces. In the next twenty-four hours, Stewart becomes ensnared in a web of dirty double-crosses, cold propositions, and desperate souls--deadly ground where murder is just one gasp away.

A stunning, fast-paced novel, Stray Dogs unfolds with unrelenting tension, memorable characters, and shocking twists of plot. John Ridley has created a hypnotic story that is pure noir, from its first page until its shattering climax.

About this title

About the Author

John Ridley wrote and directed the feature film, Cold Around the Heart. He lives in Los Angeles where he is currently working on his next novel.

From the Inside Flap

he heat that makes you crazy. I don't know what it is, but it works that way for man and animal alike. I've seen some peculiar things on a hot day too. I've seen a scorpion sting itself to death. It just keeps drivin' its tail into its body again and again. A little killer killing itself. And what a man'll do on a hot day. A man could get his self killed just for rubbing shoulders with another. . . ."

A loner, a drifter, a gambler--John Stewart asks little of life. But when his '64 Mustang busts a radiator hose in the middle of the empty Nevada desert, he prays to God, Buddha, L. Ron. And rolls into the tiny town of Sierra. Where he finds . . . nothing. A gas station whose former owner is lying low in the cemetery. A strip of barren, dust-blown store fronts. A truck stop cafe with more flies than customers.

Stewart wants out. Sucker-punched in a rigged poker game, he's got to get to Vegas to settle a debt. Or else.

Then in walks Grace, a seductive knockout w

Reviews

A high-concept hybrid mixes The Postman Always Rings Twice with Pulp Fiction, though the result bears none of the brilliant originality of those masterpieces. Newcomer Ridley, now 30, wrote this at 24, and eventually sold a screenplay based on the novel to Oliver Stone. But a reading of this vulgar, unsurprising debut fiction doesn't clarify what attracted Stone to the project in the first place. John Stewart, a wandering gambler who needs $13,000 to save his life from a Vegas hood, stops in the tiny town of Sierra in the boiling Nevada desert to get his ancient Mustang repaired. Sierra, it turns out, is a no-exit hell whose inhabitants are stuck to its environs like flies to flypaper. Everyone suffers from the same agonizing need to escape, as does Stewart, who discovers that once you enter the town, it's almost impossible to leave. Each time he tries to get out of Sierra he ends up even worse off, more battered, bloody, and desperate than before. Jake, a local realtor, offers him a way out- -if Stewart will kill Jake's wife Grace and it look like an accident so that Jake can collect on her double-indemnity insurance policy. Then Grace in turn asks Stewart to murder Jake, offering to split with him the money Jake's stashed under the floorboards of his house. Meanwhile, the Vegas hood dispatches two gunmen to kill Stewart, with orders to do so even if he does repay his gambling losses. Sierra's population consists largely of violent, not-very- bright, sullen losers, all working their own scams of one kind or another, as well as a lustful nymphet and the lascivious Grace. Double cross follows double cross until the deadly fadeout. Stunning drivel. But sell, once the movie is out? You bet. (Film rights to Phoenix Pictures/TriStar) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A busted radiator hose strands a drifter in a spooky Nevada town in this first novel from a Hollywood denizen. Soon to be an Oliver Stone movie starring Nick Nolte.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When John Stewart's "'sixty-four-and-a-half" Mustang convertible breaks down in Sierra, Nevada, in the heart of the desert, on the hottest day of the year, all hell breaks loose. In hock up to his ears, Stewart has come up with the cash to settle with a Vegas shyster--the only thing is, he is stuck in this hellhole of a town where everyone seems mad and that he can't seem to get out of. To complicate matters, he gets mixed up with the bored wife of a rich real estate man who wants her husband dead; a cocky, hot-tempered, jealous local boy who thinks Stewart is hitting on his girl; and a convenience store robbery. To top things off, the mob is coming for him. You get the picture. This nasty piece of work probably owes more to films like Blood Simple and Red Rock West than to James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. Benjamin Segedin

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345413458
• ISBN 13: 9780345413451
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168