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by Kevin Jagernauth
In this brilliant crime debut—a daring heist thriller and homage to '50s pulp noir—two men fall in love and vow to escape to the Big City together ... no matter the cost.
Our advantages await! So says the sign leading to the heart of Riverton, USA. But to the mild-mannered, terminally bored Richard Cobson, small-town life offers nothing but the desperate desire to escape it. Richard's humdrum existence is made marginally better when he realizes he can get away with skimming money from the Eddy & Dowd Safe Deposit Company, where he works. Then the handsome, smooth-talking Marlon Montgomery comes to town, and the two fall madly in love. One is a lonely number for a getaway heist; two betters the odds. Together, they concoct a plan to rob Eddy & Dowd's vault and escape to the Big City.
But Richard and Marlon's foolhardy scheme is complicated threefold: by Gloria, a recent divorcée who wants in on the plan; by Frank Todd, a disgraced cop desperate to restore his reputation; and by Mr. Dowd, the paranoid owner of Eddy & Dowd. As these characters' lives collide in explosive and ultimately fatal ways, the prospect of freedom for Richard and Marlon becomes a matter of what they're willing to pay for it.
"The Longest Death, Kevin Jagernauth's intoxicating debut novel, is both an expert homage to—and a vital expansion of—the great noir tradition. At its gleaming center is a risky plan conjured by a trio of desperate characters, each nursing their own secrets and desires. A dreamy, captivating dance through juke joints and diners, Jagernauth effortlessly conjures a lost noir world of petty grifts, the faint scent of violet cigarettes." —Megan Abbott, bestselling author of El Dorado Drive
"Deftly plotted and more confident than a debut novel has any right to be, The Longest Death follows a trio of small-town criminals brimming with big dreams and a mid-century swagger in their steps." —Dimitri Nasrallah, author of Hotline
This information about The Longest Death was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kevin Jagernauth was born in Ottawa and currently resides in Montreal. He is a freelance film critic and has covered festivals around the world including Cannes, Berlinale, and TIFF for The Film Verdict, Ioncinema, and The Playlist. He also works as a script coverage consultant for feature-length screenplays.The Longest Death is his first novel.
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