In one sense this earthy first novel by Austinite Christopher Cook is a feel-good book: Compared with the title characters, you can't help but feel good about your own relatively decent self. In Robbers two aimless outlaws, Ray Bob and Eddie, hook up and, in a sort of quien-es-mas-macho contest, set out on a killing adventure that is far too casual to be called a spree. As a surly Texas Ranger lopes after them in determined pursuit, a chance encounter with a wayward beautician causes even more tension for the gunning buddies. The characters are hardly sympathetic, but Cook clearly has the suspense-building gene; his writing, fluid yet visceral, compels the reader to hang in there while the nerve-jangling plot tick-tick-ticks toward its explosive end. The author especially excels in the laconic, cuss word-laced dialogue of Western menfolk (cuss word- laced? Hell, it's filthy!) and in clever coinages all his own: For example, he dubs the West Coasters moving to Austin "cyberokies" and the brutish, redheaded Ray Bob is a "coppernob." For such a writer, crime (fiction) can't help but pay. Reviewed by Anne Dingus
IN 1999 Dan McGraw took leave from his post as a Fort Worth-based senior editor at U.S. News and World Report and headed for his football-crazy hometown of Cleveland—ostensibly to write about the return of the Browns to the NFL but ultimately to escort his cancer-stricken father to a graceful death. McGraw discovered the truths that reveal themselves in such situations: Dying is hard, but tears and laughter help even if just for a short while. McGraw is marvelously frank, and the result is a loving homage to his late father nicely meshed with slices of life from the McGraw family. The Browns' travails are well documented, but sports have seldom seemed more trivial than when viewed cheek by jowl with Dick McGraw's terminal illness. It is ironic that McGraw's memoir, though centered on his father's death, is in more ways than he suspects a book about himself. If he is no longer Dick McGraw's son, then he must ask (and answer) the question: Just who is he? First and Last Seasons is funnier than anyone could expect—less tragic than comic. And though it's uneven in places, every word rings true. Reviewed by Mike Shea
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