The Walkaway
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Noir master Scott Phillips's The Walkaway explores the far-reaching consequences of the deception and violence of its predecessor, The Ice Harvest.
Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn’t averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He’s not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam’s sex lottery forty years ago. As Gunther’s memories unravel,
his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning. This dark comedy, at once prequel and sequel to Phillips’s award-winning debut The Ice Harvest, proves that no walkaway can escape unscathed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tinted review in adult Forecasts indicates a book that's of exceptional importance to our readers, but hasn't received a starred or boxed review.THE WALKAWAYScott Phillips. Ballantine, $22 (304p) XPhillips turns the image of Kansas heartland virtue upside down in his latest noir thriller set in Wichita's underbelly, in which all the big city problems drugs, prostitution, corrupt cops and psycho killers are present on a somewhat smaller and seedier scale. The year is 1989, and Gunther Fahnstiel, a retired cop in the memory-loss ward of an expensive nursing home, escapes to wander through a Wichita he only intermittently recognizes. His mission: to find a briefcase of money he buried in a rock quarry 10 years before. His wife, Dot, suspects what he's up to, though she doesn't know where he is; what she does know is that the money has already been dug up and spent, on Gunther's care among other things. Gunther's stepson, Sidney, to whom Gunther once gave $12,000 to buy a strip joint, attempts a payback by setting up a reward in the same amount for anyone who finds Gunther. This motivates sleazy Eric Gandy to search for Gunther; Eric is the son-in-law of Sally Ogden, who used to coordinate orgies at the rock quarry. With this information in place, Phillips segues into the book's other time frame 1952 in which readers are treated to first-person narratives by the menacing Wayne Ogden, Sally's husband, as he goes on a crime spree, and the younger Gunther, as he tracks Wayne down. In what's identified as "both a prequel and a sequel" to The Ice Harvest, Phillips pens a story full of blood and bad attitude.
