What Is Time to a Pig?

December 2, 2019
Set in 2027, Straley’s delightfully absurd third Cold Storage novel (after 2014’s Cold Storage, Alaska) takes place five years after the end of a brief war in which a poorly aimed missile fired by the North Koreans dropped unexploded warheads around southeastern Alaska. None of this means much to Gloomy Knob, who’s been incarcerated for seven years in a prison near the town of Cold Storage for his sister’s murder, until some well-meaning folks snatch him from an off-site work detail in the mistaken belief that he can locate an unaccounted for nuclear warhead. Though Gloomy is willing to help save Cold Storage and its inhabitants, including his wife, there’s one minor problem: he has no idea where the bomb is. Unhinged by his newfound freedom, Gloomy is nearly as unstable as the warhead he has been sprung to find. Desperate to return to prison to continue his sentence, Gloomy begins remembering too much for his own good—and the good of others. Straley upturns the Alaskan landscape like Carl Hiassen flipped Florida with wildly imaginative stories and droll characters.

November 15, 2019
Straley follows up 2014's Cold Storage, Alaska, with this near-future comedy-thriller. Gloomy Knob, behind bars for the murder of his sister, is spirited out of prison for a top-secret mission: to find a missing nuclear device left over from the war with North Korea. A sometimes uneasy mix of humor and suspense, the novel features some lively and eccentric characters, some wild plotting, and some very entertaining?if not entirely realistic?dialogue. Gloomy, who spends the novel in a drugged haze, has one big problem: he has no idea where the warhead is located, despite the conviction of his handlers that the answers lie somewhere in Gloomy's drug-addled mind. Straley is widely known for his acclaimed Alaska-set series of mysteries starring private investigator Cecil Younger. This is quite a bit different from those, but the author's fans will recognize the same eye for character detail and the same fluid writing style.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)