Jon Boilard: 3 books

Set in a busted Massachusetts mill town circa 1986, The Castaway Lounge is the story of Jackson "Applejack" Thibedeaux. Cocaine dealer, womanizer, and tough-guy-for-hire, Applejack is weary of the wrong life and trying to leave it behind. But all bets are off when a young pole dancer ends up dead...

Settright Road is a collection of 20 short stories and one longer piece of fiction, all set in and around a string of busted Massachusetts mill towns during the cocaine-fueled 1980s. Its pages are colored by unforgettable characters: a teenage lothario whose plans to escape his one-horse town...

Bobby DuBois comes from a long line of misfits. Basically a good kid, he can t shake an inherited propensity for violence and drug abuse. When his father gets arrested it appears likely that Bobby, too, is headed into the system. Then Uncle Thaddeus rescues him and they take to the backwoods, managing...