Excerpt from Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

By the time the U.S. got into the Second World War, the population of Bonhomie had topped six thousand. The town had its own police force, fire department, and vocational college. It had two dozen restaurants (if you counted coffee shops and soda fountains), five banks, four dry cleaners, two record stores, and a movie house. Industry thrived in and around town, such as J & J Concrete, Tuck & Sons Aluminum, and the Mid-American Canning Company; and industry died, such as Ingleton's Fizzy Pops, Dilco's Feed & Supplements, and the Hancock Bell & Skillet Company. There was a horseshoe-shaped lake with a fetch of a quarter mile just south of town off Route 18. To the north, where the exit ramp off Cooper Road fed onto Highway 23, the neon Tuck & Sons tulip—twenty feet in diameter, pink and flat as a stencil—stood atop a hundred-foot pole, visible for miles. A rusted grain elevator still bearing the checkered Purina logo loomed like a monolith at the east end of Main Street. Passenger and cargo trains came through town day and night, and some of them stopped to deposit or collect people and mail and goods, but most of them bypassed the railyard and the station and town altogether.

Bonhomie wasn't nearly so small that everyone knew everyone else, but it was small enough that, sooner or later, most everyone felt as if they'd laid eyes on most everyone else. Since the start of the war, fewer and fewer young men were seen on Main Street. Meanwhile, there was no shortage of old-timers—fifty and up—who'd fought in the last big war. One who'd lost an arm and wore his sleeve pinned, another who got around on wooden crutches because one of his legs had been blown off just below the knee. Cal's own father had been awarded a Purple Heart for taking a bullet through his shoulder while pulling a wounded officer into a foxhole in the Meuse–Argonne—though the medal was not to be seen in his increasingly cluttered house and he didn't want to talk about his war days.

Cal was astounded by the impact two inches of leg could have on a person. Being deprived of those inches, he'd gained what seemed to be a full and healthy life. But feeling happy about it didn't seem right—not when a million young men were inducted during the first year America got into World War II, and ten million by early May of 1945. That Tuesday morning, Cal had just opened Hanover Hardware on Sutton Street and was sitting on a stool behind the counter, sorting a box of washers, when a woman walked in and asked if he had a radio.

Her forehead was high and her red hair was done up in Victory Rolls. Her mint-green dress and matching pillbox hat, her white gloves, and her coral lipstick suggested money to Cal. Her eyes latched on to his as she crossed the linoleum floor. He told her yes, the store had a Zenith, but it wasn't for sale; it was in the office. She asked where the office was. "Basement," Cal said, nodding toward the stairs just past the end of the counter, and without another word she walked past him—right past the handwritten sign that read employees only—and started down the stairs.

"Ma'am?" Cal said. He dropped the washers into the box and followed her.

The basement was used mostly for overstock—though there hadn't been much to store in the past few years, with production focused on the war effort. Cal caught up with her as she made her way between two tall sets of half-empty shelves. He indicated the area in the corner that the store's owner, his father-in-law, Roman Hanover, had designated as the office.

Across from the cot where Roman took his naps was a pint-size desk where they did paperwork and where Cal ate his lunch, listened to radio programs, and read adventure novels. He was currently halfway through The Bold Buccaneer. He tugged on the string for the overhead bulb, and in its glow he noticed the deep jade of her eyes and saw how pronounced her cheekbones were, giving her face a V shape over the smooth stem of her neck. She was beautiful, he realized. But she looked agitated, impatient. She motioned toward the radio with one of her gloved hands. "Why isn't it on?"

Buckeye copyright © 2025 by Patrick Ryan. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. Cannot be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.