Empty Mile: A Novel - Softcover

Stokoe, Matthew

3.59

398 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193607012X ISBN 13: 9781936070121

Publisher: Akashic Books, 2010

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When Johnny Richardson returns to Oakridge he has one thing on his mind--correcting a terrible mistake that caused him to flee his hometown eight years ago. Revisiting the past, though, is a dark and dangerous game in small-town America. When a careless sexual episode leads to the suicide of the town€™s first lady, Johnny finds himself the target of a revenge campaign that threatens to tear apart the fragile world he€™s built among the gold-bearing mountains of Northern California.Left an unexplained piece of land when his father mysteriously disappears, Johnny must unravel its secrets in a desperate bid to protect those he loves. But his efforts to do this have deadly consequences and will ultimately force him to confront not only his own failings, but the very nature of guilt.A searing meditation on the futility of trying to right the wrongs of the past, Empty Mile blends elements of thrilling urban noir with the wide-open spaces of outdoor advent

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From the Back Cover:

Like the best noir, Empty Mile is rife with desire, desperation, and despair. Matthew Stokoe’s people have dubious motives, ugly secrets, crushing guilt, and suffer dire consequences. But they’re redeemed by the rarest gold in contemporary crime fiction--an author’s genuine empathy."
--Eddie Muller, author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir

No point in turning up the brightness’ on your set. Empty Mile is a failed-brakes careen of guilt and payback, a Lynchian labyrinth of obsession, secrets, and revenge in small-town America.”
--Janet Fitch, author of Paint It Black

The tension builds unbearably in this magnificent Sierras Noir’ novel. Stokoe writes damaged people worthy of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. His star-crossed lovers and broken families will steal your heart, even as Stokoe drives the knife home. I couldn’t stop reading.”
Denise Hamilton, author of the best-selling Eve Diamond series

Matthew Stokoe’s Empty Mile exemplifies everything that makes good noir so gut-strumming. Surprising, edgy, dangerous, nihilistic, and totally bad-ass.”
--Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season

From the Inside Flap:

High Life is perhaps the greatest neglected masterpiece of true noir. I’ve never read anything like it before or since.”
--Ken Bruen, author of The Guards

One of the most unstinting, imaginative, brutal, and original contemporary novels ever written about the punishments that come with the prioritization of fame . . . The fact that High Life isn’t regularly mentioned in the same breath with classic, transgressive social satires like American Psycho and Fight Club is a mystery and an injustice . . .”
--Dennis Cooper, author of Ugly Man

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