Edgar award-winning author Joe Lansdale returns with the hard-boiled story of a no-nonsense used car salesman ready to turn his life around
Ed Edwards is in the used car business, a business built on adjusted odometers, extra-fine print, and the belief that "buyers better beware." Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game.
When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss at the eponymous dealership Smiling Dave's sends him to repossess a Cadillac, Ed finally gets the chance to escape his miserable life.
The Cadillac in question was purchased by Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Fed up with her deadbeat husband and with unfulfilled desires of her own, Nancy suggests to Ed- in the throes of their salacious affair- that they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer: the girl, the car, and not one, but two businesses. Ed could finally say goodbye to Smiling Dave's, and maybe even send his sister to college. But does he have what it takes to see the plan through?
Told with Joe Lansdale's trademark grit, wit, and dark humor, More Better Deals is a gripping tale of the strange characters and odd dealings that define 1960s East Texas.
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“[A] grisly homage to the classic noir of James M. Cain…When a fast-talking used-car salesman meets a dishy drive-in owner, you just know trouble’s coming…Lansdale takes the familiar formula and adds a triple helping of gore, a femme fatale who’s mastered the long game, and a blustery man with an identity crisis. It’s still the same old story in the end (‘the American dream, drenched in blood and greed’), but Lansdale really makes this used car purr.”
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Booklist (starred review)