In this brilliant crime debut—a daring heist thriller and homage to ’50s pulp noir—two men fall in love and vow to escape to the Big City together . . . no matter the cost.

OUR ADVANTAGES AWAIT! So says the sign leading to the heart of Riverton, USA. But to the mild-mannered, terminally bored Richard Cobson, small-town life offers nothing but the desperate desire to escape it. Richard’s humdrum existence is made marginally better when he realizes he can get away with skimming money from the Eddy & Dowd Safe Deposit Company, where he works. Then the handsome, smooth-talking Marlon Montgomery comes to town, and the two fall madly in love. One is a lonely number for a getaway heist; two betters the odds. Together, they concoct a plan to rob Eddy & Dowd’s vault and escape to the Big City.

But Richard and Marlon’s foolhardy scheme is complicated threefold: by Gloria, a recent divorcée who wants in on the plan; by Frank Todd, a disgraced cop desperate to restore his reputation; and by Mr. Dowd, the paranoid owner of Eddy & Dowd. As these characters’ lives collide in explosive and ultimately fatal ways, the prospect of freedom for Richard and Marlon becomes a matter of what they’re willing to pay for it.