The Carrion Birds - Hardcover

Waite, Urban

3.4

374 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062216880 ISBN 13: 9780062216885

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2013

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Determined to put his past behind him and start a new life, hitman Ray Lamar, agreeing to one last heist, discovers that the road to redemption is much harder than he thought when things start to go very wrong. 40,000 first printing.

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Review:

"The defining quality of Urban Waite's gripping existential thriller is an elegant sparseness, which inevitably recalls Cormac McCarthy."--"Financial Times" on "The Terror of Living"

"In the tradition of "No Country for Old Men", Urban Waite has written a nail-biter that takes off from the get-go and never stops, a book chock full of memorable characters and kick-ass writing."--Tom Franklin on "The Terror of Living"

""The Carrion Birds" is as muscular and laconic as anything by Cormac McCarthy, yet it crackles with humanity. A-"--"Entertainment Weekly"

"The Carrion Birds" is as muscular and laconic as anything by Cormac McCarthy, yet it crackles with humanity. A- --"Entertainment Weekly""

A lean and mean, modern-day noir western filled with complex characters and situations . . . hauntingly dark and elegiac writing . . . a candidate for best crime book of 2013. --"New York Journal of Books""

[A] searing western noir. Three people face terrifying moral choices as they each wish for what they can t have: life as it was before their small border town . . . was doomed by its dying oil economy. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

Waite writes with grace and poignancy and keen comprehension of hard men in hard circumstances . . . [The] narrative rages as a perfect torrent of violence flooding toward its inevitable conclusion. Fierce and lyrical. --Kirkus Reviews"

One fine specimen . . . with more artistry than would seem possible in a conventional thriller. --"New York Times Book Review" on "The Terror of Living""

In the tradition of "No Country for Old Men," Urban Waite has written a nail-biter that takes off from the get-go and never stops, a book chock full of memorable characters and kick-ass writing. --Tom Franklin on "The Terror of Living""

A hell of a good novel, relentlessly paced and beautifully narrated. There s just no let-up. Waite s style is tight and taut. . . . Strong narrative voice, auspicious debut. . . . Awfully glad I read this one. --Stephen King on "The Terror of Living""

From the Back Cover:

Set in a small town in the Southwest, a soulful work of literary noir rife with vengeance and contrition from a fresh voice in fiction—the author of the highly acclaimed The Terror of Living

Life hasn't worked out the way Ray Lamar planned. A widower who's made some tragic mistakes, he's got one good thing going for him: he's calm and efficient under pressure, usually with a gun in his hand. A useful skill to have when you're paid to hurt people who stand in your boss's way.

But Ray isn't sure he wants to be that man anymore. He wants to go home and see the son he hopes will recognize him. He wants to make a new life far from the violence of the last ten years, and he believes that one last job will take him there. A job that should be simple, easy, clean.

Ray knows there's no such thing as easy, and sure enough, the first day ends in a catastrophic mess. Now the runners who have always moved quietly through this desert town on the Mexican border want answers. And revenge. Short on time, with no one to trust but himself, Ray must come up with a plan, or else Coronado, New Mexico's lady sheriff will have a vicious bloodbath on her hands.

Set in a town once rich with oil, now forgotten and struggling, The Carrion Birds is filled with refreshingly realistic and vulnerable characters. With its masterfully orchestrated suspense and unexpected bursts of lyricism, this is a remarkably unsettling and indelible work in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy, Elmore Leonard, and Dennis Lehane.

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