Narrator Sandy Rustin's youthful tone and energetic delivery guide listeners down PAY DIRT ROAD with youthful energy and palpable anxiety. Allen's mystery features a small-town murder investigated by an unlikely private eye. Rustin empathizes with recent college graduate and former waitress Annie McIntyre, who is seeking her purpose in life. She attends a party with former friends and co-workers at which someone murders a waitress. Annie knows the man arrested is innocent, so she stumbles into her family's private investigations business with her grandfather, a former sheriff. Rustin picks up the pace as Annie works to uncover the truth and confront some of her own unresolved issues. Rustin performs Allen's debut with passion and aplomb. R.O. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Pay Dirt Road
Narrated by Sandy Rustin
Samantha Jayne AllenUnabridged — 8 hours, 46 minutes
Pay Dirt Road
Narrated by Sandy Rustin
Samantha Jayne AllenUnabridged — 8 hours, 46 minutes
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Overview
A deep sense of place; the human condition and characters we can all relate to make up our favorite aspects of a mystery/thriller. Samantha Jayne Allen’s Pay Dirt Road hits all the right notes. And then, the best part of her book is getting to the heart of the true mystery: Can anyone ever really go home again? Read for more — and answers, too.
Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business-a private investigation firm-by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan's misgivings.
When a waitress at the café goes missing, Annie and Leroy begin an investigation that leads them down rural routes and haunted byways, to noxious-smelling oil fields and to the glowing neon of local honky-tonks. As Annie works to uncover
the truth she finds herself identifying with the victim in increasing, unsettling ways, and realizes she must confront her own past-failed romances, a disturbing experience she'd rather forget, and the trick mirror of nostalgia itself-if she wants to survive this homecoming.
Editorial Reviews
"Samantha Jayne Allen paints a detailed picture of small-town Texan life and invites readers along on a crime-solving adventure full of deepening family relationships and life lessons." —Reader's Digest
"If you liked the realist grit of Mare of Easttown, you’ll savor this smart and layered tale from a new Georgia writer worth watching." —The Augusta Chronicle
"[T]he Texas landscape, with its falling-apart houses and bedraggled bars, comes alive in this remarkable novel, reminiscent of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show." —Booklist, starred review
"A dark picture of hardscrabble Texas juiced by the heroine’s angst makes for a great debut. Here’s hoping for a follow-up." —Kirkus
"Rural noir has found a stunning new voice in Samantha Jayne Allen's Pay Dirt Road, a pitch-perfect literary mystery as beautiful and thrilling as a summer storm. Channeling Veronica Mars by way of Mare of Easttown, waitress Annie McIntyre investigates the murder of a girl everyone wants to forget in her hometown of Garnett, Texas. With its haunted setting and uncompromising voice, Allen's debut invokes the restless, melancholy backroads of the Lone Star State, ranking her with Kathleen Kent, Attica Locke, and the best of the new generation of Texas writers."
—Amy Gentry, Bestselling author of Good as Gone
"Fellow Georgia scribe, Samantha Jayne Allen, has written a brilliantly paced and breathless debut novel. Pay Dirt Road is a gorgeous blend of sweeping epic and small-town mystery. From the stark and hazy Texas backdrop to the sins of the past and secrets that come home to roost, the tension never lets up. This book will have your head spinning and your heart breaking. It’s hard to believe this is a debut novel. Pay Dirt Road is a perfect addition to the rural mystery genre."
—Brian Panowich, Award-winning author of Bull Mountain, Like Lions & Hard Cash Valley
“It's no mystery why Pay Dirt Road won the Tony Hillerman Prize for best debut novel: its heroine, Annie McIntyre, is smart and complex, the family and small-town dynamics are richly layered, and the evocative language drops you directly into the gritty Southwest. Samantha Jayne Allen is a writer to watch."
—Jess Lourey, Bestselling author of Unspeakable Things
"Samantha Allen has delivered a beauty of a debut novel with Pay Dirt Road. This is the best kind of literary thriller, every bit as compelling and hard-edged as we'd expect of a Tony Hillerman Prize winner, with real heart—and a scrapper of a heroine—at its core. Allen prowls this territory with the smarts and savvy of a seasoned veteran, and I look forward to seeing what this fine young writer does next."
—Ben Fountain, New York Times bestselling author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
11/01/2021
At loose ends when she returns home to Garnett, TX, Annie McIntyre joins her family's private investigation firm despite misgivings on all sides and is soon handling a case involving a missing waitress with whom she finds herself identifying. The result: bad memories, a confrontation with the past, and a fear that she'll never survive this case. A debut from 2019 Tony Hillerman Prize recipient Allen; with a 40,000-copy first printing.
Narrator Sandy Rustin's youthful tone and energetic delivery guide listeners down PAY DIRT ROAD with youthful energy and palpable anxiety. Allen's mystery features a small-town murder investigated by an unlikely private eye. Rustin empathizes with recent college graduate and former waitress Annie McIntyre, who is seeking her purpose in life. She attends a party with former friends and co-workers at which someone murders a waitress. Annie knows the man arrested is innocent, so she stumbles into her family's private investigations business with her grandfather, a former sheriff. Rustin picks up the pace as Annie works to uncover the truth and confront some of her own unresolved issues. Rustin performs Allen's debut with passion and aplomb. R.O. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940176333572 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 04/19/2022 |
| Series: | Annie McIntyre Mysteries , #1 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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