COYDOG

A cast of grotesques populates this wild tale of a newbie bounty hunter who goes from bad to worse.

“Daytime is the wrong time to go ferreting out folks like the Drumgooles….You’ve got to go after them nonchalantly. Go with the element of surprise.” That advice is directed to Moses Kincaid, a former military policeman who figures bounty hunting will be a good fit for his skillset. It should be a fairly straightforward job to find bail jumper Eric Drumgoole Jr., who’s on the lam after mowing down two members of the Filthy Thirteen motorcycle gang, but this bunch of “Odin-worshipping white supremacist bikers” give Moe no end of trouble. He has a bad run-in with them that would have been much worse if he didn’t have Elise, a waitress with a heart of gold, to nurse him back to health. Drumgoole is one of several jumpers Moe pursues across these pages in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Tromblay captures the antics and characters of trailer park denizens, sadists, dwarf wrestlers on angel dust, venomous snakes, wandering buffalo, roller derby girls, and other denizens of America’s dusty margins. He also spotlights the racism that dogs Moe, who is Native American, at every turn. A sudden tragedy causes his trajectory to change, everything goes sideways when a jumper dies in his custody, and Moe lands in Big Mac, the toughest penitentiary in Oklahoma. He has a chance to get his freedom back, however, if he can find out who is involved with trafficking an extremely lethal drug. Tromblay doles out violence in Tarantino-sized portions—“all crash and no brakes,” as Moe would say. Considering how much bad stuff happens to him, Moe is perhaps too unfazed. He’s not deep or complex; he just goes from one disaster to the next. His story is light on reflection and heavy on the action.

Best for readers who love a plot-driven tale; anyone wanting more depth should look elsewhere.