Rattlesnake Rodeo (Boise Longpig Hunting Club, Book 2) by Nick Kolakowski
About Rattlesnake Rodeo:
Three nights ago, Jake Halligan and his ultra-lethal sister Frankie were kidnapped by a sadistic billionaire with a vendetta against their family. That billionaire offered them a terrible deal: Spend the next 24 hours in the backwoods of Idaho, hunted by rich men with the latest in lethal weaponry. If Jake and Frankie survived, they’d go free; otherwise, nobody would ever find their bodies.
Jake and Frankie managed to escape that terrible game, but their problems are just beginning. They’re broke, on the run, and hunted by every cop between Oregon and Montana. If they’re going to make it through, they may need to strike a devil’s bargain—and carry out a seemingly impossible crime.
Rattlesnake Rodeo is a neo-Western noir filled with incredible twists. If you want true justice against the greedy and powerful, sometimes you have no choice but to rely on the worst people…
Praise for RATTLESNAKE RODEO:
“Nick Kolakowski is known for his insightful essays on complex social issues and controversies within the world of crime fiction but, for those unfamiliar with his fiction, Rattlesnake Rodeo (and its fantastic predecessor, Boise Longpig Hunting Club) are terrific starting points. At turns ruthless and intimate, but always with a touch of humor, Rodeo takes readers on a violent, memorable journey through the new American West and the dark violence plaguing his characters’ souls.” —E.A. Aymar, author of The Unrepentant
Excerpt:
After we blew up a few of the richest and most powerful men in Idaho, my sister Frankie wanted to stop for fries. We had a plastic tub filled with charred phones and wallets in the back seat of our stolen SUV, three pistols under the front seats, an AK-47 in the cargo area, and yet she felt calm enough to steer us toward deep-fried carbs and probably too many eyewitnesses. Ever since we were kids, Frankie was always the weirder sibling.
“We got a lot to do if we want to stay upright and breathing,” Frankie explained as she twisted the wheel, leaning into yet another mountain curve. “We’ll need all the calories we can get.”
In the back, my once-and-future wife Janine sorted through the bin, peeling melted driver’s licenses and high-end credit cards from blackened leather. We had found these personal effects in a locked metal box thrown clear of the explosion. The men we killed had used that box to secure their personal effects before trying to hunt us down, like how I would put my wallet and phone in my gym locker before a monster weightlifting set. I felt zero remorse over converting those sick bastards into piles of charred hamburger.
“Maybe we should toss these phones out the window,” Janine said. “Someone could track them, right?”
“We need to get whatever info off them we can,” Frankie said. “Then we’ll dump. There’s no signal up here, anyway.”
“I’m trying to find my phone right now, but there’s a lot of scrap…” Janine held up a charred lump of plastic and bubbly glass.
The road dipped into a valley prickly with burned trees, its rocky sides plunging into a narrow river foaming with rapids. Even steeper mountains beyond, the ridges patched with snow. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have found the view peaceful, but my stomach was imploding, a black hole vacuuming up my body heat from the inside. When was the last time I had been this scared? Iraq?
We were dead. Although I didn’t want to say it out loud, I knew that our life expectancy had almost certainly dropped to zero, no matter what we did or where we went. When you carbonize a group of millionaires, politicians, and millionaire-politicians, the law never stops hunting you, and they make sure you’ll never have the chance to say something embarrassing at trial.
No. We would get through this. We had to.
We had a daughter who deserved to live. I took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled, feeling a little calmer. My side-view mirror framed the pickup with Frankie’s men, trailing a hundred yards behind, and that helped my mood, too. No matter what the odds, we had Frankie’s crew and whatever information we could pull from these charred phones. We had my experience as a soldier and bounty hunter, combined with Frankie’s considerable experience in doing terrible things to other human beings for money.Amazon | B&N | Down and Out Books
About Nick Kolakowski:
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