Stray Dogs

"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.

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.