2018 Spur Award Winner for Best First Novel2018 Spur Award Winner for Best Contemporary Western
True West Magazine's Best Western Crime Novel of the Year
"Banks' strong noir debut will remind many of early Joe Lansdale. Smart dialogue helps propel the tight plot." Publishers Weekly
After fastball phenom Prospero Stark’s baseball career craters in a Mexican jail, he retreats to a trailer park in the scorching Arizona desert. He lives in peaceful anonymity with a collection of colorful outcasts until someone leaves his former catcher’s severed hand on his doorstep. Beautiful, hard-living reporter Roxanne Santa Cruz, who keeps a .380 Colt and a bottle of Chivas in her car, joins Stark to help him uncover his friend’s fate, a dangerous pursuit that pits them against a ruthless gang of drug-dealing killers.
MORE PRAISE FOR DOUBLE WIDE :
"Featuring a gaudy cast of characters, this farcical drama goes the distance against the backdrop of Corbett Field and the mean streets of Tucson. Banks is an award-winning local journalist and on top of his game in his debut novel." Arizona Daily Star
"Banks writes skillfully and with deep love for the Arizona desert. He knows the worlds of the desert women, men and kids who live under the radar of entitled society—and he writes that world without sentimentalism or judgment. He writes about alcoholism and addiction with near-surgical understanding—and kindness. He writes about professional baseball with the same merciless grace. Leo Banks devotes as much of his craft and deep perception to the setting of “Double Wide” as he does to his plot and people. " Arizona Public Radio/NPR
“'Double Wide is a rollicking page-turner. As twisted and bumpy as a desert road at night. Leo Banks crafts a fast-paced tale filled with colorful characters. He displays an excellent ear for bitter, cynical dialog and an unsparing eye for desperate characters running on empty. Read it!” –Phoef Sutton, New York Times bestselling author ('Wicked Charms,' 'Curious Minds') and Emmy award winning TV writer ('Cheers,' 'Boston Legal').
"Where Double Widereally shines is in its characters. Whip is a novelist's dream protagonist. The half-hilarious, half-somber Double Wideis so good it could bear at least one sequel. Maybe even a dozen." Mystery Scene Magazine
“'Double Wideis classic crime in its best new clothes, Goodis-style grand failure and Chandler’s streetwise knight welded to the same frame and left baking in the Arizona desert until only the essential remains. Great writing line to line, wonderful evocation of place, each sentence edged with grit and humor – here where death is another story’s start-up.” –James Sallis, author of Drive
“The book is so good that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel. Banks crafted his fast-moving plot expertly. The yarn is exceptionally well-written, Banks’s descriptions of the Arizona desert so vivid that you’ll rush to turn up the air conditioner, his portrayals of his colorful characters so memorable that you’ll find yourself wondering what else those who survivedthe tale are up to once you finish the last page.” –Bruce DeSilva, Edgar Award winning author
"It’s tough not to appreciate a madcap crime novel that incorporates drug smuggling, homicide, baseball, Shakespeare, and wayward body parts into its tumbling plot. Especially when the story also boasts keen and comical observations on life, a roadrunner pace, and a hardy but humane protagonist. Double Wide is single-minded entertainment of a subversively literary sort. More, please!" – J. Kingston Pierce, The Rap Sheet
Be sure to check out the sequel, Champagne Cowboys, now available in ebook and paperback.!
In high school, Leo W. Banks worked loading delivery trucks with the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe. In those days the Sunday paper was really heavy, so he switched from lifting to writing. He graduated from Boston College and earned a masters degree from the University of Arizona, where he later taught writing. His articles have appeared in the USA Today, Newsday, Miami Herald, National Review, National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Wall Street Journal and many others. He has been a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and, yes, the Boston Globe.; He has written four books of Old West history for Arizona Highways publishing and co-wrote a book about the Grand Canyon. His book about the saguaro cactus won’t stop selling. He has won numerous journalism awards and today writes a column for True West magazine. Double Wide is his first novel.
