{"product_id":"the-smack-9780316327619","title":"The Smack","description":"Rowan Petty is a conman down on his luck. He's flat broke, living out of cheap hotels, and wondering how it all went wrong. His car quits on him in Reno, and he takes a job there on the bottom rung of a lousy phone scam. When he's not swindling lonely widows, he tries to turn nickels into dimes at the poker table. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e One snowy night, he crosses paths with a sweet-talking hooker who's tired of the streets, and sparks fly. When an old friend of his turns up spreading a rumor about two million dollars in army money smuggled out of Afghanistan and stashed in an apartment in Los Angeles, it seems like a chance at the score of a lifetime. So Petty and the hooker head south, and straight into trouble. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A wounded vet, a washed-up actor, and Petty's estranged daughter are all players in the dangerous game they find themselves caught up in. For the winner: a fortune. For the loser: a bullet to the head. Propulsive, suspenseful, and written with a searing lyricism, \u003ci\u003eThe Smack\u003c\/i\u003e shows once again that \"Lange is a writer firing on all cylinders who belongs in the top tier of novelists working today\" ( \u003ci\u003eOmaha World-Herald\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRichard Lange\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the story collections \u003ci\u003eDead Boys\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSweet Nothing\u003c\/i\u003e and the novels \u003ci\u003eThis Wicked World\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAngel Baby\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the International Association of Crime Writers' Hammett Prize, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Mulholland Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50323553419538,"sku":"9780316327619","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_67514307-d71e-4b69-929d-acdf28cfa3f6.jpg?v=1727658211","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-smack-9780316327619","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}