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Double Barrel Bluff

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Edgar Award-nominated and USA Today-bestselling crime writer Lou Berney returns to his critically acclaimed thriller series starring former mob wheelman Shake Bouchon, who finds himself reluctantly involved in 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 Las Vegas, Shake Bouchon didn't think of himself as the settling-down type. But now he's happily married to Gina, the love of his life—and former adversary—in Indiana, of all places.
The great thing about Bloomington, for two people with exceptionally 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 the missing mob boss, the pakhan—the dangerous and beautiful Alexandra "Lexy" Ilandryan, who also happens to be Shake's ex-girlfriend.
Shake's 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 in a predatory underworld of Cambodian gangsters, mob politics, and opportunistic expats, where the stakes aren't clear and everyone is looking to gain. 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 Gina's wrath when she arrives in Cambodia intent on saving Shake from himself—and from all the people trying to kill him.
With Lou Berney's trademark wit, flawless plotting, vibrant locale, and memorable characters, Double Barrel Bluff is another unputdownable, globetrotting adventure.

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    • Booklist

      September 1, 2024
      Has it really been a dozen years since we saw Shake Bouchon, the former getaway driver and current restaurateur, and his once-enemy, now-love-of-his-life, Gina? They're now living happily in Bloomington, Indiana, where nobody knows who they used to be and everybody seems real friendly. Until a guy from the Armenian mob shows up and, using threats to emphasize his point, insists Shake locate the guy's boss, who has disappeared. The guy's boss also happens to be Shake's former girlfriend, and he feels an obligation to make sure she's safe, so off he goes to Cambodia to pick up her trail. Mayhem ensues. Berney might have taken a break from Shake's story for longer than fans would have liked (in the interim he wrote the Edgar Award-winning The Long and Faraway Gone [2015] and the Hammett Award-winning November Road [2018], among other fine books), but he picks it up as though he never left. It's a great book, full of nifty characters, with a story that builds the suspense until we're unable to stop reading. Nice to have you back, Shake.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 16, 2024
      Berney’s outstanding third Shake Bouchon thriller (after Dark Ride) sees the former getaway car driver’s retirement interrupted when an Armenian mobster pays him a visit. Dikran Ghazarian is the bodyguard for L.A. mob boss Alexandra Ilandryan, who’s gone missing during her annual trip to Cambodia. Because of his close bond with Alexandra, Dikran sets aside his vow to kill Shake, her former lover, to ask for his help finding her. Shake’s wife, Gina, is less than pleased to see her husband run off in search of his ex, but that doesn’t stop him from uneasily joining forces with the dim-witted Dikran (“He had the cognitive skills of the fence post lying broken next to them”). Meanwhile, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, a disgraced professor and an ex-con are holding Alexandra hostage, believing her to be a rich American tourist, with no clue what retribution awaits them. Shake remains a lovable, wise-cracking hero, and Berney does him justice with a cast of memorable supporting characters and a gorgeously rendered Southeast Asian locale. This sterling neo-noir series continues to deliver. Agent: Shane Salerno, The Story Factory.

    • Library Journal

      September 13, 2024

      American lowlifes kidnap Lexy Ilandrian, head of the Los Angeles Armenian gang, while she's vacationing anonymously in Cambodia. They don't know who she is, they just want a ransom. But the Armenian gangsters are so frightening that even the LA cartels steer clear of them. Shake Bouchon once was wheelman for the Armenians (and Lexy's lover), but now he's gone straight. This doesn't matter when Shake's past catches up with him: Dikran, Lexy's hulking bodyguard, shows up and threatens to kill Shake--painfully--unless he helps him find her. Shake's wife sees Dikran holding Shake and shoots him in the head with a nail gun, but he's so thickheaded it barely fazes him. So, Shake and Dikran fly to Cambodia in unhappy alliance to find the kidnappers. By then, the bad guys know their mistake: should they kill Lexy now or go ahead with their plans? Babikian, Lexy's number two, is there too--but to rescue Lexy, or eliminate her? Everything comes up roses in the end, but not without a fair amount of hugger-muggery and violence. VERDICT Berney's third Shake Bouchon novel (after Whiplash River) is as much fun as the others. Enthusiastically recommended for all crime fiction fans.--David Keymer

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      October 15, 2024
      An erstwhile accomplice of the Armenian mob gets drawn into a kidnapping plot in Cambodia. Hijinks and double-crosses ensue. From a distance, Charles Samuel "Shake" Bouchon seems to live a pretty boring life in Bloomington, Indiana. He's a driving instructor, mostly for older international students, and he's settled into domestic bliss in a quiet, dog friendly neighborhood. He's lived this "legitimate" life for a little over a year, but he's determined to keep it up, until circumstances beyond his control--most directly represented by a huge, purple-track-suit-wearing, skull-tattoo-sporting Armenian--pull him back into the criminal underworld. Dikran Ghazarian wants Shake to help him find his pakhan, Lexy Ilandryan, the L.A. boss of the Armenian mob. She seems to have disappeared while on vacation in Cambodia, so, soon, the mismatched Dikran and Shake trek halfway across the globe, where they discover that Lexy has been kidnapped by a pair of criminals-for-hire who have no idea who she is. With the help of a Cambodian hippie who reads auras and may experience prophetic dreams; a local honcho--and onetime CIA contact--named Ouch; and, eventually, Shake's wife, Gina, also reformed from the wrong side of the law, Dikran and Shake go head-to-head with a fashionista kingpin named Bjorn and then Lexy's second-in-command, who has "more teeth than seemed possible for a single human mouth" and may or may not be on their side. There is no shortage of action, clever jibes, rough-and-tumble fights, casual murders, or double-crosses in the novel; it moves smoothly and quickly, with Shake as the thoughtful, sympathetic, knowledgeable linchpin who keeps everything grounded just enough in logic and reality. The prose lacks some of Berney's usual flair, but his characters, always on the edges of polite society, continue to plumb its gray areas and find the compromises with which they can--and sometimes must--live. Deft, well-crafted fun: irreverent, darkly humorous, and multilayered.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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