Stray Dogs

Stray Dogs by Ridley, John. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780345413468.

"Its the heat that makes you crazy. I dont know what it is, but it works that way for man and animal alike. Ive seen some peculiar things on a hot day too. Ive 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 manll 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, hes 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. From the Hardcover edition.