Buy This Book

In Thriller Guy’s last blog entry (see below) TG explained why he doesn’t flack his writer friends’ thrillers on the blog. The short version is that when he does he gets nasty emails from readers who bought the book and didn’t like it, usually because most of his friends – even the writers – especially the writers – who buy the recommendation don’t really read many thrillers, even though they think they do. Last week TG suggested helping pal Larry Kahaner out by giving his novel a vote in the Kindle publishing program. Thanks for all of you who did so.

TG would now like to recommend Dodgers, a new novel by writer pal Bill Beverly.  

Why is TG breaking his custom the second time in a row? Because Dodgers is one motherfucker of a book. (In the book business, when a prepublication review for a book comes in, the marketing people always look for a line they can “pull out” from the review to use as a blurb on the cover, usually when the book comes out in paperback. Hence the term “pull out line.”) In this paragraph TG has given Bill and his publisher Crown, a hellofa pull out line. “Bill Beverly’s Dodgers, hailed as “One motherfucker of a book,” by noted book reviewer and blogger Thriller Guy.

You’re welcome, Bill.

Here’s the pitch: A fifteen-year-old LA gang-banger, known as East, is sent on a mission to kill a man who witnessed a crime that involves East’s uncle. The hook is, the witness is hiding in Wisconsin and East has never been out of LA. He and three other young men like him take off on an epic road trip in a van to do the job. On the way to the Midwest and when they arrive, shit happens, as you might expect.

The thing is, Beverly can really write. Not like TG’s alter ego, Allen Appel, whose efforts can be bought here and which in reviews are usually described as “workmanlike” (Hey, workmanlike gets the job done!) but writes like, well, TG hesitates to compare him to anyone because he has his own compelling style, one that leaves you pulling out lines to be mused over and admired from every angle. TG hates the term “literary thriller” because it is usually applied to a thriller that’s authored by a writer who is considered of literary quality, rather than the usual genre ghetto that the rest of us dwell in. This is not the case here. Beverly would be a terrific writer of great quality no matter what sort of novel he was writing. We are lucky he chose thriller as the type if not the genre. It’s sort of like watching someone from your own crappy part of town do well in the larger world. Go get’em, Bill.

TG readers: Go buy his book. You’ll thank me, for a change.