ROBBERS

First-timer Cook, a former journalist and human-rights activist in Texas, serves up “running buddies” Ray Bob and Eddie, who follow up their prison stint with a killing spree motivated by a need for cold beer, pocket money, and an amorality so deep it must have been implanted prenatally. Their demonic swathe through most of Texas leads them to Della, desperate to escape the vicinity of her hotel before someone discovers that she has, as she dreads, killed her john, who changed from Mister Dreamboat to Monsieur de Sade with the flick of a belt buckle. Eventually, the trio, casually adding more deaths to their scorecard, find themselves holed up in a ramshackle beach house belonging to a friend of Della’s—and that’s where the running buddies’ friendship begins to disintegrate, as Eddie pairs up with Della and finds work as a blues guitarist at Bubba Bear’s Stingaree Bar, and Ray Bob takes off for parts and victims unknown. Meantime, Texas Ranger Rule Hooks and his tracking dog Lucky are closing in, as is another old-time lawman, out to avenge a relative who became one of the buddies’ victims. But more cold-blooded killing is in the offing when Ray Bob returns and the partnership is dissolved with murderous finality back at the beach house.

Della, whose mentors are drawn from soap operas and the sleazier talk-show hosts, is appallingly funny, while Ray Bob’s behavior makes a powerful case for capital punishment without trial. Despite some schmaltz toward the end: an impressive first effort.