Publishers Weekly
02/06/2023
Fully realized characters lift Cranor’s grim second novel (after 2022’s Don’t Know Tough). A dispute over a woman led Tom Fitzjurls to kill Rudnick Ledford by shooting him in the back. The open-and-shut case landed Tom in prison, sentenced to life without parole. That left his father, Jeremiah, a Vietnam vet who operates a car junkyard in Taggard, Ark., to raise Tom’s infant daughter, Jo, after she was abandoned by her mother. Now a high school senior, Jo is chafing to escape her guardian’s tight restrictions on her social life, even as Jeremiah struggles with accepting that she’ll be moving on. Meanwhile, Rud’s brother, Evail, a meth dealer, ex-con, and white supremacist who narrowly avoided being killed at the same time as his sibling, believes he’s found the perfect way to get revenge on the Fitzjurls family. Evail’s threat to Jo forces Jeremiah, who was nicknamed the Judge during his tour of duty for his marksmanship, to team up with several allies he doesn’t fully trust to protect her. The author has a superior gift for capturing the cadences and feel of Southern small towns. Greg Iles fans will be eager for Cranor’s next. Agent: David Hale Smith, InkWell Management. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Ozark Dogs
Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award
Nominated for the Barry Award for Best Mystery or Crime Novel
A National Bestseller
A New York Times Best Crime Novel of 2023
The Guardian Best Crime and Thrillers of 2023
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Mystery Fiction of 2023
CrimeReads Best Crime Novels of 2023
CrimeReads Best Noir Fiction of 2023
A Financial Times Best Books of Summer
An ABA IndieNext Pick for April 2023
“Ozark Dogs is a gripping family drama that mixes murder with mistaken identity and hidden secrets. Each revelation shocked me more than the last. I simply could not put it down.”
—Brendan Slocumb, author of The Violin Conspiracy
“Raw, gritty, and darkly beautiful noir at its finest. Cranor digs deep into the hard places, the hard choices that crush and grind. And he does so with great tenderness for his flawed and broken characters as they seek revenge, cling to honor, and sacrifice everything for family. This is a writer to watch.”
—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
“There’s a little more hope in Eli Cranor’s Ozark Dogs, but just like his acclaimed debut, Don’t Know Tough, it dwells in the murky recesses of rural Arkansas, where people often commit acts of violence out of desperation . . . Cranor doesn’t hide the horror or the emotional wreckage, but he also never resorts to gratuitous descriptions.”
—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review
“Sweeps the reader in from the first page . . . Ozark Dogs is a gritty, authentic triumph, one howling to be turned into a film or TV series.”
—Financial Times
“[Ozark Dogs] finds poetry amid the darkness in the most unlikely of places . . . Like Woodrell, Cranor writes about people who, on the surface, might be called simple folks but are, in reality, complicated with complex motives and emotions.”
—Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Ozark Dogs shows no sign of sophomore slump. It’s a relentless grit-noir thriller of family secrets, betrayals and the toxic marriage of addiction and violence.”
—Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Times
“Eli Cranor has an eye for catfish coutnry and an ear for its voices. As Colt and Jeremiah embark on a life-or-death chase through the backwoods, Cranor stirs into the twisty mix white supremacists, crafty meth dealers and bloodhounds. Woof.”
—The Times (UK)
“Eli Cranor’s superb new novel Ozark Dogs tunnels into your brain with feverish power. A story of family burdens and dark legacies, it’s thrillingly told, deeply wrenching, not to be missed.”
—Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Turnout
“A sophomore effort of remarkable scope and stride, Ozark Dogs is a saga of blood spilt and blood owed, which at its bones reveals how far we will go to protect the ones we love. Eli Cranor is a fire that is growing.”
—David Joy, author of The Line That Held Us
“Eli Cranor writes about his people and his place with a bloodred certainty and a careful eye toward the things that both bind us together and tear us apart. Ozark Dogs does not compromise one single beat.”
—Michael Farris Smith, author of Nick and The Fighter
“Whatever darkness lives in the space between a finger and a trigger also lives in the pages of Ozark Dogs. A tale of blood, guilt, family, and murder, this one will move from the junkyard straight into your heart. Cranor is one of the South’s best contemporary chroniclers, and his keen eye is on full display here.”
—Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You Home
“A propulsive, gritty thriller that’s all Arkansas.”
—Arkansas Times
“Propulsive.”
—Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
“Scorching country noir . . . There is not one character on either side of the family divide who doesn't bring the reader up short by displaying an unexpected layer of complexity—and even, sometimes, compassion. In only his second novel, Cranor has transformed a familiar noir theme into a multidimensional tragedy of great power and beauty.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“A rural noir masterpiece.”
—Crime Fiction Lover
“The author has a superior gift for capturing the cadences and feel of Southern small towns. Greg Iles fans will be eager for Cranor’s next.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A feud between Arkansas families escalates with the fury of Greek tragedy... Family loyalty, young love, honoring the dead—they’re all here, and they all go terribly wrong.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Don’t Know Tough
“There is a raw ferocity to Cranor’s prose, perfectly in keeping with the novel’s examination of curdling masculinity.”
—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review
“A major work from a bright, young talent.”
—Tod Goldberg, USA Today, **** out of **** stars
“Cranor is an author to watch.”
—Oline Cogdill, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Eli Cranor is that rare writer who can make you gasp, cry and cheer often in the same paragraph.”
—S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland
Kirkus Reviews
2023-01-12
A feud between Arkansas families escalates with the fury of Greek tragedy in Cranor’s fact-based thriller.
Just because 17-year-old Joanna Fitzjurls has lost the competition for Homecoming Queen is no reason why she shouldn’t take advantage of the uncharacteristically late curfew her grandfather and guardian, Jeremiah Fitzjurls, has allowed her, and she decides to go all the way with her sort-of-boyfriend, quarterback Colt Dillard. But Colt turns out to be just as inexperienced as she is, and while he’s in the bathroom preparing for round two, she takes off on her own. She’s quickly picked up by White supremacist skinhead Evail Ledford, who’s recently agreed with Guillermo Torres to swap 50 pounds of meth for each American girl Evail can deliver. Evail takes particular pleasure in bagging Jo, because her father, Tommy, is doing time for shooting Evail’s brother, Rudnick, and crushing his remains in the trunk of a car in the Fitzjurls family junkyard. Tommy had claimed in court that he was defending the property from a trespasser, but he wasn’t any more successful with a jury than Jo was in her nomination for Homecoming Queen. As Craven County Sheriff Mona McNabb, who has a checkered family history of her own, does everything she can to head off a climax as scarifying as it is inevitable, Cranor reveals more and more details about the two families’ history until it’s clear that Jo’s ordeals aren’t just an outrage; they’re the latest echo of a generational tragedy.
Family loyalty, young love, honoring the dead—they’re all here, and they all go terribly wrong.
