The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

'A tour de force'

Guardian



'A bloody yet surprisingly warm-hearted spin on The Godfather. Great stuff'

The Times, Best Thrillers of 2025





Babs Dionne, doting grandmother and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into its borders with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a former soldier struggling with addiction.





When a drug cartel discovers that its numbers are down in the area, they send a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs's wrath...



Ron Currie is the award-winning author of five novels. He has won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the Addison M. Metcalf Award, the Alex Award, and the Pushcart Prize. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, and his short fiction and nonfiction have received recognition in Best American anthologies. As a screenwriter he worked most recently on the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations and has developed projects with AMC Studios, Amblin Television, and ITV America. He lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches in the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program.



A bloody yet surprisingly warm-hearted spin on The Godfather. Great stuff



Leavened by a surprising amount of humour and empathy, this is the vivid, tragic and violent story of people trying to do their best against insurmountable odds: a tour de force



Darkly funny... an unforgettable tale of power, love and survival in the heart of Maine



A Shakespearean drama... An addictive and unforgettable read



Literary thrillers just don't come any better



Heartfelt, beguiling, gritty, and true



A furious page-turner that kept me up way past my bedtime



Reads like a French-Canadian The Godfather... A rare novel of equal appeal to fans of Elizabeth Strout and Dennis Lehane



An unputdownable story and the perfect ending that leaves you teary and utterly satisfied



Darkly funny, shocking, and unblinking... Who would guess that there's another Godfather saga?



Ruthless, beautiful, cutthroat, gorgeous, poignant, incendiary, and important... I am in awe



An electrifying achievement by Currie, epic in its ambition but intimate in its focus... This will hold up as one of the best crime-fiction books of 2025