"Simply tremendous! Tom Kakonis's writing is on a level with Elmore Leonard."
Chicago Tribune CRISS CROSS

It's a bone-chilling winter in Grand Rapids. Ex-cop Mitch Morse is stuck in a dreary, dead-end job at a discount store so he can't resist when a smoldering, sexy cashier Starla Hudek asks him to join a gang of down-to-their-last-chance killers and criminals ready to do whatever it takes to pull off the score of a lifetime on Christmas Eve.

"Stylishly flamboyant...Kakonis has honed his skills at locking violent characters into harrowing, if often hilarious, straits." - New York Times

It begins as an audacious armored car heist...but then things go ho-ho-horribly wrong, and the lust, greed, and scheming spirals out of control, the criss-crossing loyalties and betrayals tightening like a noose around Mitch's neck.

"Tom Kakonis, a poet of raunch, brings to life the misfits and desperate dreamers who inhabit the shadowy side of a 'vanilla milkshake town'...Deft plotting, in-depth characterization and devilish humor add up to a riveting read." - Publisher's Weekly.