THE DEBT

The Buckley family is so dysfunctional it’s almost criminal—in fact, they are criminals.

Marc Buckley has recently returned from his second prison sentence for fraud. His kid brother Carl is pathologically fond of hurting people. Dee, the matriarch, uses an iron hand to run the family. Jim, the paterfamilias, more or less manages the family business, a seedy lap-dancing establishment. Only Marc’s wife Simone, faithful despite his many betrayals, walks the straight and narrow out of an unquenchable belief in everyone’s good intentions. Just before Christmas, Jim rises unexpectedly from his usual sottish compliance to defy his wife when he invites an old associate of theirs, Johnny Frank, home from prison, where he spent the last 18 years for murder. Johnny supposedly needs the Buckleys’ help in retrieving a cache of pink diamonds he stole before he was arrested. Simone is skeptical, but when Marc is kidnapped, she is forced to join forces with the sinister ex-con. She must make sure that Johnny gets the diamonds and exchanges them for Marc’s life.

The alternating points of view between Simone and Johnny add to the suspense as the two characters race through a twisty, witty narrative from first-timer Kray.