Harry Rane

Two years ago, Harry Rane's wife died after a bout with cancer. Then, grief-stricken and careless, he went back to his job as a New Jersey state cop and got shot in the line of duty. He took early retirement, and now lives in an old farmhouse in rural New Jersey and takes life one day at a time. It's not much, but he gets by. Things change when an old friend from his grade school days in Long Branch calls him for help. Bobby was Harry's best friend until high school graduation, but when Harry went to the police academy Bobby went another way, working, dealing a little on the side. Now he's taken one last chance and gotten in over his head for $50,000 to Eddie Fallon, a local crime boss. Harry goes to see Fallon on Bobby's behalf, hoping to work something out, but it's hard to negotiate with a man like Fallon, and things quickly get complicated, and dangerous. He does learn, too, that he and Fallon have something in common, Fallon's wife is an ex-girlfriend Harry hasn't seen since he was eighteen, a girl who was pregnant with his child when she ran away. In The Barbed-Wire Kiss, Wallace Stroby's brooding, blistering debut set against the spare, atmospheric background of downstate New Jersey, Harry gets caught between his past and his future, between right and vengeance.

Ex-state trooper Harry Rane, who first appeared in Wallace Stroby's brilliant debut novel, The Barbed-Wire Kiss, is at loose ends. Doing some investigative work for a friend's firm just to keep himself busy, Harry meets Nikki Ellis, a woman desperate for help. Her ex, Johnny Harrow, was just released from prison after a seven-year stretch for attempted murder. Nikki hasn't spoken to him since he went down, but she knows what he's capable of, and that he'll be looking for her-and for the baby she put up for adoption after Johnny went away. She knows it's up to her to protect the child once again. And, she's afraid. As Harry finds out, she should be. Johnny is headed home to New Jersey to settle up with anyone who did him wrong while he was gone, including Nikki and his former employer, mobster Joey Alea. Then he's planning to find his son and start a new life. Johnny starts at the Heartbreak Lounge, where Nikki was a dancer when she first met Johnny, and works his way through their old life, leaving a trail of blood and fear in his wake. Only Harry might be tough enough, or reckless enough, to help her.