The Devil Himself
A Novel
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
For Fans of Brian Panowich and Ron Rash.
Southern Noir at its finest, The Devil Himself, sizzles with page-burning suspense and bewitching characters. Deep in the forest of South Georgia, barely eighteen-year-old Maya narrowly escapes a savage end. The victim of a vast human trafficking operation managed out of Mexico, Maya had the misfortune to discover the dark plans of a high-ranking client. Her fate seemed sealed, until Leonard Moye, a lonely eccentric who tolerates no one on his land, takes the young woman under his protection. Both having lived lives that have left deep scars, each consumed by anger, they soon develop a bond that makes them, as a pair, a formidable foe, even for hardened criminals and professional scumbags. Maya knows too much and the old man lives on land in the crosshairs of narco machinations. As the heavies seek to finish the job, they find they may be no match for the resourcefulness of a disturbed old man and a cunning young woman.
Written with a skilled combination of breakneck pace and mind-searing detail, Farris has created a wicked and compassionate novel of redemption.
First published in France with enormous critical acclaim and winning multiple literary awards, The Devil Himself will mark Peter Farris as a major crime writer in America as well.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This riveting crime novel from Farris (Last Call for the Living) opens with Maya, an 18-year-old sex trafficking victim, inside the trunk of a car being driven to Georgia's rural Trickum County by two thugs. Maya's pimp, Lucio, has ordered her killed because she knows too much about the shady activities of a prominent politician who's now her only client. The car stops on property Lucio owns ("swampland full of gators"), where Maya makes a failed effort to escape. Just as one of the thugs is about to shoot her, he's hit in the head with a rifle stock. Maya's rescuer, Leonard Moye, a reclusive former bootlegger who lives with a mannequin he treats like his absent wife, gently nurses the injured Maya back to health. Meanwhile, Lucio learns where Maya is and sends another crew after her, but Leonard easily thwarts this attempt as well. A third attempt to get Maya raises the stakes. Eventually, a Trickum County deputy sheriff, suspicious about what's been going on at Leonard's place, gets involved. Narrow escapes, violent encounters, and deep Southern culture shape this into an exciting tale. Noir fans will be well satisfied.