Las Vegas Weekly

Five random excerpts from ‘Gutshot Straight’ by Lou Berney*

*A novel set partially in Las Vegas

“Gutshot” Straight by Lou Berney, $25, William Morrow.

- “‘I’m not jealous,’ Lucy said. It was true. She was just stupid and pathetic.‘I’m just stupid and pathetic.’”

- “Jasper turned and fired three shots so quickly that it sounded like one long shot. The Whale’s white shirt flared bright red, and he lurched backward. He thudded against the wall, knocking a candle off the shelf, then slid down the wall. He was so fat he didn’t topple but more like melted over sideways.”

- “Jesus fracking Christ.”

- “The last he saw of the Apache Motor Inn, as he gunned the Town Car onto South Las Vegas Boulevard, was Jasper in the rearview mirror, staggering out of the motel room with a .45 automatic in one hand and an unhappy expression on his moon-shaped face.”

- “It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon. She’d been asleep for—oh, shit, her heart busted a little hip-hop move in her chest—three hours.”

Berney will read from Gutshot Straight at 7 p.m. January 14 at the Clark County Library. 507-3459.