After losing a poker hand to a sleazy stockbroker, an ex-cop must work to pay off his debt Before cocaine, Joe Crow had a wife and a job with the Big River Police Department. Now he has neither-and he's left behind coke, too. Sober, quiet, and reflective, his only vice is poker. One night he gets into trouble, and winds up in debt to the drug-addled slimeball Dickie Wicky. As repayment, Crow agrees to do Dickie a favor. Dickie thinks his wife, a slender young thing called Catfish, is running around on him. He wants Crow to find her lover and pay him to leave her alone. But Catfish has charms and troubles of her own, and she will draw Crow into the underbelly of Minnesota-a world of drugs, murder, and the dangerous business of counterfeit comic books. This girl is one fish that Crow should have thrown back.
"Pete Hautman has written a remarkably accomplished and entertaining first novel, and the comparisons to Westlake and Leonard are justified. You'll have a good time with this one."
Lawrence Block
"A rollicking crime caper... brilliant enough to dazzle the players in novels by the likes of Joe Gores and Elmore Leonard."
The New York Times Book Review
"A romp of a first novel... The cast of characters alone is worth the price of admission."
