Multi-award winning and USA Today bestselling crime writer Lou Berney returns to his critically acclaimed thriller series starring former mob wheelman Shake Bouchon, who finds himself dragged into a high-stakes hostage rescue, among the mighty temples and shadowy underground of Cambodia.
During his years as a wheelman for the Armenian mob in Los Angeles, Shake Bouchon didnât think of himself as the settling-down type. But now heâs happily married to Gina, the love of his lifeâand former adversaryâin Indiana, of all places.
The great thing about Bloomington, for two people with checkered pasts, is that everyone is nice and no one knows them. Until the day a brutal Armenian thug who has always hated Shake shows up in his backyard. He demands that Shake help him find his missing mob boss, the pakhanâthe dangerous and beautiful Alexandra âLexyâ Ilandryan, who also happens to be Shakeâs ex-girlfriend.
Shakeâs got a lot of history with Lexy, so he reluctantly agrees to travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she was last seen. Once there, he finds himself tangled in an underworld of Cambodian gangsters, mob politics, and opportunistic expats, where the stakes arenât clear and everyone is looking to score. With only the help of a clairvoyant hippie and the Armenian thug, Shake becomes involved in a high-stakes negotiation for Lexy that might cost him his own life.
But perhaps most threatening of all is Ginaâs wrath when she arrives in Cambodia intent on saving Shake from himselfâand from all the people trying to kill him.
With Lou Berneyâs trademark wit, flawless plotting, vibrant locale, and memorable characters, Double Barrel Bluff is another unputdownable, globe-trotting adventure.
Lou Berney is the multiple awardâwinning author of November Road, The Long and Faraway Gone, Double Barrel Bluff, Dark Ride, as well as Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He lives in Oklahoma and teaches at Oklahoma City University.