Name: Dodgers
Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
ISBN: 9781101903735

Bill Beverly

William Beverly

Sent by his uncle along with his hotheaded brother and other teens to kill a major witness, East, a young gang member from Los Angeles, finds his perspectives changed by his encounters outside of the city.

A Novel

Dodgers

Jan Jackson

Perry’s breathing was soft and tinkly, glasslike, like a stone rattling in a bottle as it rolled. It tumbled and slowed, tumbled and slowed. It isn't taking long, East thought. There isn't much more. Once Perry's breath nearly ended on the upstroke. Then he let the air out - another roll, another tumble. East put his hand near Perry's hand, and he leaned and looked again down the barrel of Perry's eyes. The last thing anyone saw. He supposed he was willing to be it. He put the fingers of his hand atop Perry's knuckles, and Perry let out a half cough, out of his chest, which was high and white and furred with hairs like bare winter trees on a mountain. The stone in the bottle rolled again. The eyes swam in their clouds, their baths of white. Then the bottle bumped up on something, rolled no farther, and the mountain knew it too, what the fish knew, that last thing of things.

When East, a low-level lookout for a Los Angeles drug organisation, loses his watch house in a police raid, his boss recruits him for a very different job: a road trip straight down the middle of white, rural America to assassinate a judge in Wisconsin. Having no choice, East and a crew of untested boys - including his trigger-happy younger brother, Ty - leave the only home they've ever known with a roll of cash, a map and a gun they shouldn't have. Along the way, the country surprises East. Only he can decide which way to go - and which person to become.

Excellent. Lovely writing, with intriguing and well-rounded characters. A simple road trip full of delight for the minds eye.

Winner of the British Book Award for Best Crime & Thriller Novel 2017 Winner of the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger Award 2016 Winner of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award 2016 Winner of the LA Times Book Prize 2017 Shortlisted for the British Book Award for Overall Book of the Year 2017 Shortlisted for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel 2017 Shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction 2017 'This is - quite simply - one of the best books I've read in a VERY long time' – Don Winslow ‘One of the best literary crime novels you will read in your lifetime’ – Donald Ray Pollock Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger. When East, a low-level lookout for a Los Angeles drug organisation, loses his watch house in a police raid, his boss recruits him for a very different job: a road trip - straight down the middle of white, rural America - to assassinate a judge in Wisconsin. Having no choice, East and a crew of untested boys - including his trigger-happy younger brother, Ty - leave the only home they’ve ever known in a nondescript blue van, with a roll of cash, a map and a gun they shouldn’t have. Along the way, the country surprises East. The blood on his hands isn’t the blood he expects. And he reaches places where only he can decide which way to go - or which person to become. By way of The Wire and in the spirit of Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan and Richard Price’s Clockers, Dodgers is itself something entirely original: a gripping literary crime novel with a compact cast whose intimate story opens up to become a reflection on the nature of belonging and reinvention. 'Told in precise, economical prose, Bill Beverly's debut novel Dodgers is well worth the read' – Guardian 'A road movie, a coming-of-age tale, a crime novel of gritty realism and a hugely impressive debut' – Irish Times 'Violent, insightful and beautifully written' – Metro 'An intense, dangerous debut' – Express 'Exposes the real fears and deep sadness of teenagers who grow up in a world of poverty, drugs and violence' – Times

Dodgers A Novel

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