Dust Devils

An isolated farm . . . A lonely woman . . . And a young man who may not be what he seems . . . But when the wind whips up dust devils on the Texas plains, nothing is what it seems. Toby McCoy is full of questions when he is shoved headfirst into a mix of robbers, murderers, betrayals and death. Toby has his own share of dark secrets that will have to come out before any answers are found. James Reasoner is the author of the classic noir TEXAS WIND and finally returns to his roots in this action-packed redneck-noir thriller.

Starred Review. With a simple but effective plot and understated prose, this outstanding redneck noir successfully gives the windswept Texas plains the feel of mean city streets. Young, callow Toby McCoy appears at an isolated farmhouse, apparently just seeking work. Soon he's plowing the fields, feeding the hogs and making eyes at Grace Halligan, the lovely older woman who owns the place. Just as the two move beyond a professional relationship, strange gunmen appear at the farm, forcing the lovers to reveal the extent of their mutual deceptions as they hit the road—with two dogs in the back of their pickup truck—in search of a double-crossing bank robber and the money he owes Grace. In the spirit of the genre, Reasoner (Texas Wind) saves the final chilling revelations for the very end, captivating the reader with other twists and turns along the way. (Aug.)
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*Starred Review* The scene is almost mythic. A pickup truck bumps down a dusty dirt road somewhere on the plains. It may be Dakota, but New Mexico would be better, and the Texas Panhandle, where veteran pulp novelist Reasoner begins his tale, is best of all. What Toby "wanted to do when he left Oklahoma was find his mother. Well, find her and pay her back for abandoning him." He finds her all right, and he pays her back by seducing her. Except that the woman Toby seduces is not his mother. All good noir novels have at their center a femme fatale, and the woman in bed with Toby is an old-school classic, from the James M. Cain school. It turns out that Toby's mother, a cancer victim, is buried in the backyard, but when Toby is about to have it out with Dana, his new lover, two of her old chums and fellow bank robbers break into the farmhouse with the intention of settling up on a $400-grand haul. Without blinking an eye, Dana dispatches the pair and invites Toby into her world of racy love and fast money. This is redneck noir at its most archetypal, and Reasoner, author of the cult favorite Texas Wind (1980), knows how to pull all the right strings. Reasoner also writes western romances under the pseudonym Dana Fuller Ross, but noir devotees won't hold that against him. This is the real thing. Glassman, Steve