What Is Time to a Pig? (A Cold Storage Novel)

In this mind-bending crime novel by Shamus Award–winner John Straley, one man attempts to save his town from nuclear annihilation.

It’s been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends histime trying to forget the past.

Then one day, Gloomy is snatched from his off-site work station. Instead of celebrating his newfound freedom, Gloomy comes unmoored—he feels he belongs in prison. But his kidnappers believe Gloomy knows where a second nuclear warhead is hidden and demand to know where it is. The clock is ticking, and Gloomy knows that unless he finds the missing warhead fast, or his wife, his friends, and the entire town of Cold Storage will be obliterated. The only problem? He has no idea where it is.

As Gloomy struggles to escape, the memories he fought hard to repress begin to creep out from the strange corners of his mind, first in rivulets, then in waves. In a drug-induced haze, Gloomy makes a discovery that may just bring him the closure he desires—if it doesn’t kill him first.

John Straley was born in Redwood City, California. He received a BA in English from the University of Washington but settled in Sitka, Alaska, with his wife, Jan, a prominent whale biologist. John worked for thirty years as a criminal defense investigator, and many of the characters in his books were inspired by his work. Now retired, he lives with his wife in a bright green house on the beach and writes in his weathertight office overlooking Old Sitka Rocks. The former Writer Laureate of Alaska, he is the author of over ten novels, including Cold Storage, Alaska and the Shamus Award-winner The Woman Who Married a Bear, the first Cecil Younger investigation.