The Shotgun Rule

Starred review from July 30, 2007
One of the crime genre's rising stars, Huston (Six Bad Things
) delivers a stunning, darkly comic coming-of-age novel, set in the summer of 1983 in an unnamed Northern California town. Four teenage boys, out of school and experimenting with drugs, booze and sex, find trouble fast when they break into the home of the notorious Arroyo brothers to retrieve a stolen bicycle. In the process, they stumble on the Arroyo family's main operation, a meth lab. In a classic moment of naïve bravado, they steal part of the stash, setting off a downward spiral of events that will reopen the door to the town's dark past, when an earlier generation of criminals, including one of the boy's fathers, controlled the streets. Huston's natural gift for dialogue shines as he recreates the language of teenage males, in all its crude and often hilarious glory. Most importantly, Huston has the courage to both unsettle and entertain the reader, and his story resonates long after its disturbing final scenes. Author tour.

August 1, 2007
In his first stand-alone thriller, Huston explores a 1980s suburban California milieu similar to the one that set the stage for his wonderful Hank Thompson trilogy: teenage screwups chasing away the summertime blues by engaging in minor-league mayhem. Here, four white-bread friends who smoke pot and pilfer neighbors jewelry tangle with a trio of hardcase Hispanic brothers who stash their youngest pals bike in their crank lab/chop shop. The fast-unfolding plots tension springs from elements both expected (the fine line between youthful indiscretions and life-ruining mistakes) and surprising (how the kids actions unearth a long-buried feud involving their parents). Huston demonstrates a great feel for characters on the cusp of maturitywhich helps readers connect with their adolescent aches even when theyre being a pain. But just when it seems this might be a mislabeled YA yarn, the book delivers a fully realized elder generation as well. Huston also manages to minimize the racially charged aspects of the teen showdown by making one member of the foursome a Latino punk rocker who steals more than his share of scenes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)