Set in a small town in the Southwest, a soulful work of literary noir rife with vengeance and contrition from a fresh voice in fiction—the author of the highly acclaimed The Terror of Living
Life hasn't worked out the way Ray Lamar planned. A widower who's made some tragic mistakes, he's got one good thing going for him: he's calm and efficient under pressure, usually with a gun in his hand. A useful skill to have when you're paid to hurt people who stand in your boss's way.
But Ray isn't sure he wants to be that man anymore. He wants to go home and see the son he hopes will recognize him. He wants to make a new life far from the violence of the last ten years, and he believes that one last job will take him there. A job that should be simple, easy, clean.
Ray knows there's no such thing as easy, and sure enough, the first day ends in a catastrophic mess. Now the runners who have always moved quietly through this desert town on the Mexican border want answers. And revenge. Short on time, with no one to trust but himself, Ray must come up with a plan, or else Coronado, New Mexico's lady sheriff will have a vicious bloodbath on her hands.
Set in a town once rich with oil, now forgotten and struggling, The Carrion Birds is filled with refreshingly realistic and vulnerable characters. With its masterfully orchestrated suspense and unexpected bursts of lyricism, this is a remarkably unsettling and indelible work in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy, Elmore Leonard, and Dennis Lehane.
Read an excerpt HERE.
"This book came to me highly regarded and, my friends, let me urge you to read this novel.
Ray Lamar had hoped his life would be different… he’s made a few mistakes that have ended tragically for those around him. Ray has returned to Coronado, New Mexico, with a plan to do one last job for his drug-running boss, Memo. Almost from the get-go, though, things continue going wrong Ray. Horribly, horribly wrong not only for him, but once more, for everyone around him…
This is a grim and gritty book about the fading dreams of the American Southwest, the realities of the energy boom and bust and the flow of drugs and crime from south of the border. This is a novel about the choices we make and how you can’t run from your past. Urban Waite’s writing is cinematic in scope… images so vivid I feel like I’ve already seen the movie. Waite’s writing is compelling… the book is extremely well-paced. He brings the characters together in an ever-tightening trail of violence. And this is a violent book, but not gratuitously so. Instead, it seems so realistic: this is what happens when these characters make these choices. People get shot, people die. This is a book fans of Cormac McCarthy will enjoy, fans of Quentin Tarantino, Dennis Lehane… literary crime noir. A most excellent novel!”
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