Finished: "Dust Devils" by James Reasoner

Finished: Dust Devils by James Reasoner, 2007, 9780809572458.

This was short at 150 pages but Reasoner packs a lot in. I've read two other Reasoner books besides this one and this one was a good read.

Twenty-year-old Toby travels to the Texas Panhandle, gets a job at a remote farm, fucks Dana the attractive 38 year old owner, demands to know why she left him for adoption two decades ago, and watches in surprise as a two men burst into the house, and Dana kills them both in a nasty fight.

Turns out Dana is not his mother but took the mom's identity after staying with her while the mom died of cancer. Dana has been on the run for a couple years from fellow robbers who think she stole the $400k pot of bank robbery. Toby pairs up with Dana in an attempt to get her clear of her trouble. The story takes a travelogue East to Dallas, West through West Texas and Pecos and down into the Davis Mountains as Dana tries to convince the surviving crooks that Larry, a scummy crook, was the real double crosser.

I think Reasoner may have taken a driving vacation and then written it off on his taxes as research for the novel. He has nice little details of places and towns along the way. Good action scenes and plenty of sex. He does a lot within such a short novel.

EDIT: Neat critique of the book and things that Reasoner did so well at: http://pattinase.blogspot.com/2008/08/reading-forgotten-books-dust-devils-by.html