Winner of the John Creasey (New Blood) and Goldsboro Gold Dagger Awards 2016.
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer go rap! A striking literary thriller which follows the reluctant journey of East, a young ghetto kid from a world of drugs and crime in Los Angeles, across the United States on his way to a murder he must commit to prove his loyalty and gain redemption for a mistake he made back home. An old-fashioned narrative quest and road journey through the moral vacuity of America, alongside his psychopathic younger brother and other endearing junior gang members on a mission set for failure. The main protagonist's voice is both touching and engrossing, a modern version of Holden Caulfield had he been born in Compton and a generation or so later, and his itinerary both geographical and mental is a poetic as well as profane, delicate joy to behold. A character study of the highest quality as well as a thriller as addictive as crack. Without the shadow of a doubt, a book that will come to be seen as a landmark in US crime writing.
Winner of the British Book Award for Best Crime & Thriller Novel 2017Winner of the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger Award 2016Winner of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award 2016Winner of the LA Times Book Prize 2017Shortlisted for the British Book Award for Overall Book of the Year 2017Shortlisted for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel 2017Shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction 2017'This is - quite simply - one of the best books I've read in a VERY long time' - Don Winslow'One of the best literary crime novels you will read in your lifetime' - Donald Ray PollockDodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger. When East, a low-level lookout for a Los Angeles drug organisation, loses his watch house in a police raid, his boss recruits him for a very different job: a road trip - straight down the middle of white, rural America - to assassinate a judge in Wisconsin. Having no choice, East and a crew of untested boys - including his trigger-happy younger brother, Ty - leave the only home they've ever known in a nondescript blue van, with a roll of cash, a map and a gun they shouldn't have. Along the way, the country surprises East. The blood on his hands isn't the blood he expects. And he reaches places where only he can decide which way to go - or which person to become. By way of The Wire and in the spirit of Scott Smith's A Simple Plan and Richard Price's Clockers, Dodgers is itself something entirely original: a gripping literary crime novel with a compact cast whose intimate story opens up to become a reflection on the nature of belonging and reinvention. 'Told in precise, economical prose, Bill Beverly's debut novel Dodgers is well worth the read' - Guardian'A road movie, a coming-of-age tale, a crime novel of gritty realism and a hugely impressive debut' - Irish Times'Violent, insightful and beautifully written' - Metro'An intense, dangerous debut' - Express'Exposes the real fears and deep sadness of teenagers who grow up in a world of poverty, drugs and violence' - Times
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