My Brother's Destroyer - Clayton Lindemuth

A moonshiner with a surreal gift
A country strongman
And a talking dog

Baer Creighton is a gifted distiller of fruited moonshine, capable of detecting even the subtlest lies. He lives in the woods next to his house, philosophizes with his dog Fred, and writes letters to his high school love Ruth--who long ago chose Baer's brother.

Baer keeps a low profile. Everyone is happy drinking his sublime moonshines -- until Fred goes missing. A week later, while Baer harvests apples in the moonlight, a chain of headlights emerges from the woods. A single truck tosses a bundle to the ditch.

When you discover who stole Fred, you'll know you've found a new master of the dark surreal.

And when you see what Baer does to him...

Them...

You haven't read a novel like this.

I promise.

Kirkus Review: Lindemuth writes in a Southern dialect that perfectly evokes the woods and hollows of the Carolina hills. Baer's voice is as textured as the landscape ("All my life I got out the way so the liars and cheats could go on lying and cheating one another. I can spot a liar like nobody"), and the brutal acts that he describes are timeless and primal. Even within the bounds of this vernacular, Lindemuth manages to fashion sharp observations: "Cory Smylie was irredeemable, but given the vastness of Stipe's enterprise, odd jobs presented that were uniquely suited to irredeemable men."

...the world of Gleason is so immersive and Baer's vendetta so oddly compelling... Fans of noir tales set in rural America will particularly welcome this addition to the genre.