Allison Willoughby has never had much luck with men, but Boyd Dobbins, the ace card-mechanic Casanova, is in a class by himself. He's a sleaze and a cheater who may be every bit as handsome as he thinks he is, but only half as smart, and when Allison's finally had enough, she grabs her bag and hits the nearest road out of Vegas. Like a rolling stone, no direction home, no plans for tomorrow . . . and no idea she's carrying the only key to seven hundred fifty grand in skimmed casino cash.

But Boyd knows it. And so does Madeline DeCarlo, the over-the-hill showgirl turned crooked pit boss with killer legs and the soul of Lizzie Borden. And so does Gunther Manzetti, the chromosomally challenged psycho mob enforcer whose favorite method of persuasion involves the creative application of Crystal Drano. They're all after the unsuspecting Allison, who has decided to head east and, after a lifetime of running away, confront the man whose abuse nearly destroyed her as a child: her father. It's only hours before the bodies begin to pile up.

Caper, chase, mission of retribution, and day of reckoning: These are the threads that weave together this high-energy, fiercely intelligent thriller, as it rips across the mythically vibrant American Southwest like a vicious twister, leaving abundant wreckage in its wake and racing toward a bloody Mississippi showdown.

It's all delivered in taut, lean-and-mean prose, and it careens along like a vintage big-engined Caddy with the top down and the pedal through the metal. Buckle up and revel in the fresh, irresistibly wild-at-heart ride that is Wild Horses.